Wilfrid David Baker was born in 1889 in Upchurch, Kent. One of ten children, to Charles and Margaret Baker, he followed his father into the brickmaking industry.
When the Great War came, Wilfrid signed up, enlisting in the Royal Navy in March 1917, as Stoker 2nd Class. During his training in Woolwich, he was promoted to Stoker 1st Class, before being assigned to the HMS Columbine naval base in Scotland.
During his work there, Stoker Baker came down with influenza and was transferred to the HMHS Garth Castle hospital ship. Wilfrid’s illness developed into pneumonia, and he passed away on 20th October 1918. He was 29 years of age.
Stoker 1st Class Wilfrid Baker is buried in the churchyard of St Mary the Virgin in his home village, Upchurch.
Walter George Colchin was born in 1884 in Borden, Kent. His parents, Herbert and Frances, moved the family – three sons, including Walter, and a daughter – to the village of Iwade, where they ran the Woolpack Inn.
There isn’t a great deal of information about Walter’s life. He married Bertha Sparks from the neighbouring village of Milton in 1916.
Walter joined the war effort at some point after that – I have been unable to find an exact date – and enlisted in the Royal Army Service Corps, before transferring to the Agricultural Company Labour Corps.
Private Colchin was on active service in Steyning, West Sussex, when the war came to a close. On 23rd December 1918, he suffered a cerebral haemorrhage and died. He was 34 years old.
Walter Colchin is buried in the graveyard of All Saints Church in his home village of Iwade.
Thomas Clements was born in St Helen’s, Lancashire in 1877. He was the youngest of ten children to George Clements and his wife Martha.
George worked as an engine fitter, and he seems to have follow the work wherever it went – consecutive censuses list him in Middlesex, Staffordshire, Yorkshire and Lancashire, although he disappears from 1891 onwards.
Thomas lived with the family up until his mother’s death in 1911, mainly in Burnley, Lancashire, where he worked as a grocer’s assistant. The last available census shows him living in the Salvation Army Home in Chorlton-upon-Medlock, to the south of Manchester city centre.
Tom’s military records are sparse – he enlisted in the 6th (Reserve) Battalion King’s Royal Rifles, who were based in Sheerness, Kent, for the entirety of the conflict. It is unlikely, therefore, that Rifleman Clements saw active service on the Western Front.
Sadly, the cause of Tom’s death is also absent from the records. He does not appear in any contemporary newspapers, so it is seems likely that he succumbed, as many did, to some form of illness, perhaps influenza or pneumonia. The Register of Soldier’s Effects give his next of kin as his father, George; the latest information on him was that he was an inmate of the Union Workhouse in Burnley, Lancashire.
Rifleman Clements died on 14th June 1915; he was 37 years old. He lies at rest in the graveyard of All Saints Church, Iwade in Kent, presumably close to where he was based, in Sittingbourne.
Stuart William Arthur Mercer was born in February 1890, one of seven children to William and Eliza Mercer. The family lived in the village of Upchurch, Kent, where William worked as an agricultural labourer.
Stuart followed in his father’s footsteps, and by the time of the 1911 census, he and his brother Bert were working as fruit plantation labourers with William.
He married the delightfully named Elsie Lily Singyard who was also from Upchurch, in 1914, but the couple didn’t have any children.
It was not until towards the end of the Great War that Stuart signed up for service. He enlisted in the Royal Navy on 27th September 1918, and was assigned to the HMS Pembroke II training base in Chatham.
Stoker Mercer’s service was short, however; he had contracted bronchial pneumonia within weeks of the war ending and was admitted to the Royal Navy Hospital in Chatham. He passed away there on 28th November 1918. He was 28 years old.
Stoker Stuart Mercer lies at rest in the St Mary the Virgin churchyard in his home village, Upchurch in Kent.
Harry Austin was born in the small Kent village of Bobbing in 1890. One of nine children to Richard and Emma Austin, his father was the village blacksmith, a trade two of his brothers followed after leaving school. Harry, however, became a general labourer in the coal industry.
Sadly, most of Harry’s wartime service is lost to time; we know that he enlisted in the Royal Field Artillery and served as a driver. The RFA was responsible for the medium-calibre guns and howitzers deployed close to the front line; Harry’s role, therefore, was likely to have involved driving the horses to and from the sites where the guns were needed.
Again, Driver Austin’s military records are somewhat lacking when it comes to his passing. However, where they mark him as ‘dead from disease’, a contemporary newspaper in memoriam gives a little more detail.
In ever loving memory of Driver Harry Austin, RFA… who passed away November 10th 1918, in the 1st Southern General Hospital, Birmingham, from influenza following Gun Shot wounds, aged 29 years.
East Kent Gazette – Saturday 23rd November 1918.
An untimely death for Harry, but particularly poignant, given that he passed the day before the Armistice was signed.
Driver Harry Austin lies at peace in the graveyard of St Bartholomew’s Church in his home village of Bobbing, Kent.
Osbourne Ethelbert Winch was born in Kent in 1888, one of three sons to Ernest and Ann Winch. Being the eldest, he inherited his unusual combination of names from his grandfathers – Osbourne on his mother’s side and Ethelbert on his father’s.
Osbourne had moved out of the family home by the time of the 1911 census, and, when war broke out, was quick to enlist. His records show that he was a tall man – standing at 5ft 10ins (1.78m) and he was declared fit for territorial service.
Private Winch joined the 45th Provisional Battalion, before moving to the Royal East Kent Mounted Rifles (also known as the Buffs) in 1916. Soon to be posted to the Front Line, Osbourne married Elsie Taylor in March that year, and he was posted in April.
Along with the move to the Buffs, Private Winch received promotions, first to Lance Corporal and then to Corporal. He again transferred to the Base Depot at Etaples in December 1916 and, for some reason, he reverted to being Private. His records confirm this was “under Para 12.VV.W.L.9/Geb No 5080 (AGI)”, although I have not been able to established what this means. There is no mention of disciplinary behaviour in his records, so whether this was because of the transfer to the depot, I cannot say.
Either way, he was transferred to the Front again on 13th December 1916, and remained on the Cavalry rate of pay.
Private Winch remained at the Front for a number of months. On 19th April 1917, possibly while involved in the Nivelle Offensive, he received gunshot wounds to the head and right hip. He was moved to a hospital in Béthune in northern France, where his hip was operated on.
Osbourne was transferred back to the UK on the Hospital Ship Cambria for medical treatment. His medical report from the UK hospital makes for grim reading:
Private states that he lay out for 2 days before being brought in. Gun shot wound head and right hip 19.4.17. Op on hip at Béthune – bad cough on admissions and moist sound in chest. Large septic wound over right hip exposing iliac crest and much comminution of ilium [breakage of the hip bone]. Acute pneumonia developed and patient grew steadily worse.
Medical Report: E Hamilton-Browne, Military Hospital, Endell Street, London WC
Private Osbourne Winch died at 4pm on 30th April 1917. He was 28 years old. He lies at peace in the graveyard of St Bartholomew’s Church in his home village of Bobbing in Kent.
Henry Edward Thurley was born in 1895, the tenth of twelve children to George and Charlotte Thurley. George was a brickmaker from Enfield, Middlesex, and the family moved around to follow his work.
Born in Sheerness, Kent, by the 1901 census, Henry was living with his family in Shoeburyness, Essex. Ten years later, the family had relocated back in Kent, and Henry had joined his father in the brickmaking business, while also working as a waterman – working on boats in the nearby Medway estuary.
When the Great War came, Henry was quick to enlist. He joined the East Kent Regiment – also known as “The Buffs” – in August 1915. After his initial training, Private Thurley was sent to France as part of the British Expeditionary Force.
Private Thurley was wounded on 6th March 1916, receiving gunshot wounds to his right foot, head and eyes. He was sent home to recover, but within a couple of months, he was back on the front line, serving for King and country again.
Henry was wounded again on 16th January 1917; this time is was his right eye that was affected, and he was shipped back to the UK and admitted to Merryflats War Hospital in Glasgow. His wounds appeared more serious this time, and he succumbed to them at 3:50pm on 1st February 1917. He was just 21 years old.
Private Henry Thurley was buried in the churchyard of St Mary the Virgin in his home village of Upchurch in Kent.
Walter Apps was born in 1896 in Kent. He was one of thirteen children to Richard Apps, a shepherd, and his wife Emeline. By the age of 14 he was listed as working on the farm the family lived on; his older brother Bertie was also helping out.
In February 1916 Walter was called up; his enlistment papers show he worked as a horseman, and that he joined the Royal East Kent Regiment (also known as the Buffs because of the colour of their tunic).
Private Apps was posted to the Western Front as part of the British Expeditionary Force in October 1916, and was soon transferred to the Royal West Kent Regiment.
He saw active service, and was wounded on 17th July 1917, receiving a gun shot wound to the face, which resulted in him losing the sight in his left eye.
Private Apps was repatriated on 8th August 1917, and remained there. He was discharged from the army as being no longer medically fit to serve at the beginning of the following March, but sadly passed away on 27th March 1918. He was just 22 years old.
Walter Apps lies at rest in the graveyard of St Bartholomew’s Church in Bobbing, Kent.
Albert Victor Stapleton was born in East London in 1893. One of five children to James and Mary Anne Stapleton, he lost his father when he was only eight years old. Mary Anne married again, and where her first husband has been a glass blower, her second, Edward, was a cooper/barrel-maker, and the family moved to Rainham in Kent.
Albert joined the armed forced early, enlisting in the Royal Engineers in December 1910 for a period of four years. When war was declared, this was extended for a further four years.
In 1915, Private Albert married Daisy, and they lived in the Rainham area. Over the next couple of years, he was promoted, joining the London Electrical Engineers and becoming Lance Corporal.
On 24th October 1918, just a couple of weeks before the end of the war, Albert was admitted to hospital in South London with influenza; while there, he developed pneumonia in the right lung. Lance Corporal Stapleton died on 2nd November 1918. He was 25 years old.
Lance Corporal Albert Victor Stapleton lies at rest in the churchyard of St Mary the Virgin in the quiet village of Upchurch in Kent.
Tragically, just weeks after Albert’s death, Daisy gave birth to a son. Albert William Stapleton would never know his father.
Frederick Smith was one of twelve children to George and Ann Smith of Rainham in Kent. Sadly, the couple lost their first four children early on, but at least seven of Frederick’s siblings survived beyond childhood.
His father was a labourer, and Frederick’s two surviving older brothers followed him into this profession.
A lot of Frederick’s service records are missing, but I have been able to ascertain that he enlisted in early 1915, joining the 8th Battalion, Queen’s Own (Royal West Kent Regiment). He trained at Fort Darland in Chatham before being shipped overseas.
The battalion was involved in the Battle of Loos later that year, but it was the fighting at Wulverghem in Western Flanders that changed Private Smith’s life. The German army launched a gas attack on the Allied lines on 30th April 1916; in the second attack on 17th June, Frederick was injured by the gas, and was shipped back to home soil.
The East Kent Gazette takes up the story:
He was brought to Camberwell Hospital, where he was for seven weeks. Enteric fever developed, and young Smith died on Thursday in last week [14th September].
East Kent Gazette: Saturday 23rd September 1916.
Frederick was just 19 years old.
Private Frederick Smith lies at rest in the graveyard of St Margaret’s Church in Rainham, Kent.
Death and Service 