John Thomas Alston, also known as Jack, was born in Chorley, Lancashire, in 1865 and was one of thirteen children to Richard and Elizabeth Alston. Before he died in 1878, Richard was a stripper and a grinder in a cotton mill, and it was millwork that the majority of his and Elizabeth’s children went into.
When he left school, Jack and his siblings worked as cotton piecers in the mills, tying together any threads that broke on the machines. This was a job aimed at children, whose hands were often the only ones small enough to reach into the equipment.
By 1895, Elizabeth too had passed away. Jack, who was 30 by this point, had moved from Chorley to nearby Oswaldtwistle, and met Mary Ellen Wilcock. She was a widow with two children, and the couple married on 14th February 1897. Their marriage certificate shows that she was the daughter of a weaver, while Jack was working as a furnace man in the mill. The couple went on to have a child together, Amy, who was born in 1900.
The couple settled into if not a comfortable life, then a continued existence. While Mary and her two older children were working in the cotton mill, Jack began labouring at the local chemical works. The family lived in a small, two up, two down cottage right next to Mary and the children’s place of work, and life continued apace.
War was coming however, and Jack volunteered to do his bit. His service records no longer exist, but it can only be assumed that he joined of his own accord; he would have been 50 when hostilities commenced, and so exempt from the initial call-up.
Private Alston was assigned to the Somerset Light Infantry, and was based at their Depot in Taunton. Little information about his time there is available, and sadly, the next accessible document is his pension record. This confirms that he died on 7th April 1916, from “shock caused by a fall while on duty”. There is no other reference to what or how this happened, so the circumstances will remain a mystery. He was 51 years old when he passed away.
It seems that his widow may not have had the funds to bring Jack back home; instead he lies at rest in St Mary’s Cemetery in Taunton, Somerset, close to the depot where he was based.
Frederick Henry Virgin was born in 1888, the second eldest of ten children. His parents were carter Thomas Virgin and his wife, Ellen, and the family lived in Taunton, Somerset.
Frederick craved adventure and this came in the form of military service. In August 1906, he enlisted in the Royal Field Artillery, and was assigned as a driver. Initially serving at home, he was shipped to India for four years, returning to England in December 1912.
Driver Virgin met and married Alice Shattock in April 1914, but had been shipped off to France within months, when war broke out. He served overseas for eighteen months, before transferring back to England again. By this point he was suffering with sciatica, and this is what saw him assigned lighter duties in the Reserve Brigade on the home front.
Alice fell pregnant, and the couple had a little boy in February 1917; sadly, his life was brief, and he passed away at the age of just two days. One can only imagine the impact this had on his parents.
Frederick’s health issues continued to be a problem, and he was medically discharged from the army later that year. While the sciatica was not solely attributed to his military service, his discharge report confirmed that his time in the army contributed to the issue. Driver Virgin’s time with the Royal Field Artillery came to an end in December 1917.
Sadly, it is at this point that Frederick’s trail goes cold. His records confirm that he passed away nearly a year later, on 26th November 1918, but there is no record as to the cause of his death. He was 30 years of age.
Frederick Henry Virgin lies at rest in St Mary’s Cemetery in his home town of Taunton, Somerset.
Gerald Montague Brine war born in October 1897, the youngest of seven children to John and Annie Brine. John was a potter, and, while the children were born in Dorset, the family soon moved to the Somerset village of Binegar.
Gerald’s three older brothers all went to work in a local stone quarry, as an engineer, breaker and foreman respectively. When Gerald left school, he found work with the local blacksmith as a striker. It was while employed there, in 1912, that his mother Annie passed away, aged just 50 years old.
War was on its way however, and where his brothers enlisted in the army, Gerald was bound for the sea. He enlisted in the Royal Navy on 3rd November 1915 and, as an Ordinary Seaman, was assigned to HMS Iron Duke. He was aboard the vessel when it became embroiled in the Battle of Jutland in May 1916, and was subsequently transferred to HMS Discoverer.
Promoted to Able Seaman in April 1918, the Discoverer headed back to Chatham a couple of months later. A Somerset newspaper picks up on Gerald’s sad tale from there.
When one of His Majesty’s ships was returning to port, and her crew were looking forward to “leave”, an unfortunate tragedy occurred by which Gerald Montague Brine, a young Able Seaman [and] a native of Binegar, lost his life. It appears that in the course of storing gear, a loaded revolver was removed by mistake to the armourer’s room, instead of to the officer’s cabin, and was placed on a table.
Curiosity led Peter Macfarlane, another able seaman, to handle it, and as he was bringing it to his side from an upward position, he, to use his own words, unconsciously pulled the trigger. It fired, and the bullet entered Brine’s body just under his left shoulder, fracturing his spine and producing paralysis of his lower limbs.
Wells Journal: Friday 12th July 1918
Gerald’s parents had a telegram to say that he was seriously wounded and in the Royal Naval Hospital, Chatham. They travelled at once to Chatham and found him very ill, but conscious. They remained with him until he died a week later, on 1st July 1918. He was just 20 years of age.
At the inquest, Macfarlane described Brine as his best chum, and all witnesses agreed that “the best possible relations existed between the members of the crew.” According to the doctor’s evidence at the inquest, Gerald was unable to be saved. The jury reached a verdict of Accidental Death.
Able Seaman was brought home to Binegar, and lies at rest in the graveyard of Holy Trinity Church.
Gerald’s grave also acts as a memorial to two of his older brothers.
Arthur Brine, who had been the stone breaker in the quarry, emigrated to Canada after his mother had died, finding work there as a fireman. The Great War brought him back to European shores, however, and he enlisted in the Canadian Expeditionary Force, joining the 188th Battalion.
Private Brine arrived in England in October 1916; he transferred to the 28th Canadians, and set off for France the following January. He was caught up in the Battle of Arras and was hit and killed by a piece of shrapnel on 15th April 1917. He was just 29 years old.
Arthur Brine lies at peace in the Ecoivres Cemetery to the north west of Arras in Northern France.
Herbert Brine had been the foreman at the stone quarry He married Sarah Lucy James shortly before his mother’s death in 1912; the couple went on to have two children, Arthur and Kenneth.
Herbert was mobilised in July 1917, initially joining the 3rd Reserve Battalion. He was drafted, as an Able Seaman, to the Hood Battalion, Royal Naval Division (RND) in November 1917, before re-joining his RND Battalion at Flesquières, near Cambrai, two months later.
In early March 1918, the Germans started bombardments in preparation for a major offensive. For ten days from 12th March, the Flesquières salient was drenched with nearly a quarter of a million (mostly mustard) gas shells, There were over 2,000 resultant casualties in the RND. After this preparatory shelling, the Germans attacked in enormous numbers.
By the end of the day, the situation was precarious and the Division was forced to retreat in steps, through Bertincourt, Ytres and the Metz lines, through the old Somme battlefields.
Able Seaman Brine was first reported missing on 24th March, but was only accepted as having been killed in action on that date nine months later. As such, Herbert is commemorated by name on the Arras Memorial; his name also resides on Gerald’s gravestone back home in Binegar.
The Great War took its toll on the Brine family. Three of the four brothers died during those tumultuous years, leaving only John’s oldest son, Wallace, to carry on the family name. John himself died in 1942, aged 84, and lies with his wife and youngest boy in the small Binegar churchyard.
Cyril John Rowsell was born in the spring of 1897, one of four children to John and Edith Rowsell. John had been married previously, to a woman called Martha. She had died in 1893, not long after giving birth to the second of their two children – sadly, the child died when little more than a babe in arms. Cyril, therefore, had a half-sibling in his older brother Albert, as well as two full brothers, Richard and George, and a sister, Irene.
Cyril had been born in the Somerset village of Yeovil Marsh, but his father had moved the family to nearby Haselbury Plucknett, where he was the local miller.
John Rowsell was obviously a man of many talents, because, by the 1911 census, he was listed as a dairy manager. By now Cyril was 14 years old, and the family had moved again, this time to the village of Westbury-sub-Mendip, near Wells.
War was on the horizon, and Cyril seemed keen to play his part as early as he could. Full details of his military service are not readily available, but it is evident that he enlisted soon after the conflict began.
Cyril enlisted in the Somerset Light Infantry in 1914 and was assigned to the 1st Battalion as a Private. The Somerset Light Infantry were involved in a number of the fiercest battles on the Western Front, and he seems to have been lucky enough to escape injury until April 1918.
During the Battle of Bethune, Private Rowsell was shot and injured. Initially treated at the scene, he was evacuated to England and admitted to the General Hospital in Birmingham. Sadly, he did not recover from his wounds, and he passed away on 30th April 1918. He was just 21 years of age.
Cyril John Rowsell lies at peace in the graveyard of St Lawrence’s Church in Westbury-sub-Mendip, Somerset.
Francis William George Packer was born in Bristol on 28th July 1884. The eldest of three children, he was the son of a grocer, Francis Packer Sr, and his wife, Eliza.
When Francis left school, he followed his father into the grocery business and married Kate Taverner on 1st September 1907. They had one child, a daughter called Dora, in 1909 and, by the time of the census two years later, Francis had moved his young family to Bath.
By the time he was called up, in December 1915, Francis had moved the family again, this time to the sleepy village of Blagdon, in the Somerset Mendips. He formally enlisted in the Machine Gun Corps of the Somerset Light Infantry in July 1916, and was sent to the front in January the following year.
Private Packer’s battalion fought at Arras, and it was here that he was injured. On 1st May 1917, he received a gunshot wound to his right thigh, which fractured his femur. He was initially treated on site, before being shipped back to England, where he was admitted to King George’s Hospital in London.
Sadly, it seems there were complications with his treatment, and Private Packer died from his wounds four months later, on 19th September 1917. He was 33 years old.
Francis William George Packer was brought back to his family in Blagdon, and lies at rest in the churchyard of St Andrew’s there.
The local paper reported on Francis’ funeral, but what struck me is that there seems a glaring omission in the list of those who attended. It was obvious that he wanted a strictly private funeral, but:
The mourners were Mr FE Packer (father), Mr S Emery (brother-in-law), Mr SG Packer (uncle), Mr W Taverner (uncle), Mrs ES Packer (mother), Mrs E Emery (wife’s sister), Amy Parker and Nellie Parker [his sisters-in-law], A Packer (aunt), Dolly Parker, Dolly Flower, Mr J Jones (uncle), Mr CJ Redwood, Mr J Nelson and Mr AH Bleacove.
Western Daily Press: Wednesday 26th September 1917
There is nothing in the report to suggest that Francis’ widow attended the funeral.
Francis’ younger brother, Albert Packer, also fought and died in the First World War. Find his story here.
There are some people whose stories just don’t want to be unearthed. It’s rare, but occasionally the brick walls come up and you just can’t find a crack through them.
Private A Lewis seems to be one of those people.
The gravestone is in Woodlands Cemetery in Gillingham, Kent. The inscription reads:
G/39918 Private
A Lewis
Middlesex Regiment
11th April 1919
Military records for the service number are scarce, which is not unusual, but unearth two things. Private Lewis’ first name was Alfred, and he was married to a woman called Amelia.
Further research leads to his wife’s full maiden name, Amelia Florence May Courtney, and that she was the daughter of a draper’s assistant, born in London. The couple married in December 1909.
Frustratingly at this point, the trail goes cold. There is a record for an Alfred and Millie Lewis living in Gillingham in the 1911 census, but I am not convinced that they are the same couple.
Alfred Lewis is too common a name to be able to pinpoint any life before his marriage with any certainty, particularly as their marriage record does not give his parents’ names.
All I can say is that Alfred Lewis enlisted in the Middlesex Regiment, although there is no confirmation of when he enrolled. He gained both the Victory and British Medals, but there is nothing to confirm whether he service abroad or part of a territorial force.
Alfred was admitted to the War Hospital in Whitchurch, which was a psychiatric hospital to the north of Cardiff. He was recorded as suffering from paralysis, though whether this was the result of a physical or mental trauma is not clear.
Sadly, Private Lewis passed away on 11th April 1919; his age is unknown. He lies at rest in the Woodlands Cemetery in Gillingham.
Walter Vaine Bromley was born in March 1877, one of seven children to Frederick and Jane Bromley. Frederick was a gardener, and the family lived in Maidstone, Kent. Sadly Jane died when Walter was only two years old; while the cause of her death is not noted, she passed away in the Barming Lunatic Asylum in Kent.
Things must have been tough for Frederick; his maternal aunt, Sarah, came to live with the family to help raise his children, but further support seems to have been needed and, by the time of the 1891 census, Walter was a student at the Kent County Industrial School, which was, in effect, a boys home, near Ashford.
By the end of that year, having left school, he enlisted in the army, joining the Royal West Kent Regiment. He served most of his twelve years’ enrolment in India, although he suffered numerous hospital admissions for dysentery, ague and orchitis (a swelling of the testicles, often brought about by a sexually transmitted bacterial infection), amongst other ailments.
On being demobbed, Walter became a postman; he moved to Gillingham, and was given a round serving the Eastcourt area of the town. A year later, he married Rose Brenchley, and the couple went on to have four children; Ada, Violet, Frederick and Hilda.
Hostilities began, and, in July 1915, Walter enlisted in the 8th (City of London) Battalion, The London Regiment (Post Office Rifles). Rifleman Bromley served as part of the Territorial Force for his first year, before being sent to France in August 1916.
His time there was cut short, however, as he received a gunshot wound in the left ankle. William was repatriated to England for treatment, and was eventually medically discharged from the army on 22nd August 1917.
Surprisingly, it seems not to have been the ankle wound that led to Rifleman Bromley’s passing, however. His pension records, instead, give his cause of death as a goitre contracted whilst on active service. Either way, he passed on 9th July 1918, at the age of 41 years old.
Walter Vaine Bromley lies at rest in the Woodlands Cemetery in his adopted home town of Gillingham in Kent.
George Henry Whittell was born in the spring of 1891, the son of engine fitter William and his wife, Florence. George was the oldest of two children, both boys, but sadly lost his mother in 1897, at just six years old.
William remarried two years after her death, and, with his new wife, Frances, he had two further children, Gladys and Leslie.
By the time of the 1911 census, the family were living in Gillingham, Kent, and George and his brother Frederick were both working as boiler makers in the largest employer in the area, the naval dockyard in Chatham. War was on the horizon, and William was also working there as a torpedo fitter.
In 1915, George married Minnie Baker; they went on to have a son, Ronald, who was born in the September of that year.
I have not been able to track down all of George’s military records; he enlisted in the Royal Fusiliers, and was assigned to the 10th (Service) Battalion. While his date of enlistment is not recorded, his troop set off for France at the end of July 1915. If George had been involved from that point, he would have departed shortly after his marriage, and would have been at the Front when his son was born.
Little is known of Serjeant Whittell’s service; he was wounded in May or June 1918, and was repatriated to England for treatment. Admitted to the Western General Hospital in Manchester, he sadly did not recover from his wounds, and passed away on 5th June 1918. He was 27 years old.
George Henry Whittell lies at rest in the Woodlands Cemetery in his home town of Gillingham, Kent.
Ernest Hart Painter was born in December 1884 one of eight children to Alfred and Elizabeth from Devon. Alfred moved the family to Cheddar, Somerset to work at a paper mill in but sadly passed away when Ernest was only eleven years old.
The family rallied round Elizabeth, however, and, by the time of the 1901 census, she was living on the outskirts of the town with her six younger children. Elizabeth worked as a domestic cook; Ernest was an agricultural labourer; his two older sisters were shirt machinists; his 13 year old brother Albert was listed as a gentleman’s servant.
Ernest, by this point, seemed to have taken on the role of head of the family; he continued work as a farm labourer, while Elizabeth earned money as a housekeeper. Alfred became a mechanic for a car dealer and, at the 1911 census, the three of them lived with the youngest member of the family, Ernest’s sister Emily, who had followed in her older sisters’ footsteps as a machinist.
As with many of the fallen men and women of the Great War, a lot of Ernest’s military service records have been lost to time. He enlisted in the Army Veterinary Corps in December 1915, his work as a farm labourer presumably having involved animals and livestock.
Private Painter must have been on the front line as, on 30th May 1918, he was shot in the ankle. Shipped back to England for treatment, he was eventually discharged from service on 19th November, a week after the Armistice. The ankle wound continued to give him trouble, however, and over the following couple of years, he had a number of operations on it.
Sadly, the last of these procedures resulted in an infection, and sepsis took hold. Private Painter passed away from blood poisoning on 15th April 1921. He was 36 years old.
Ernest Hart Painter lies at rest in the graveyard of St Andrew’s Church in Cheddar, Somerset.
William Alfred Woodbury was born in the Somerset village of Nether Stowey in April 1899, the oldest of four children to Alfred and Nellie Woodbury. Alfred was a farm labourer, and, by the time William was a couple of years old, he had moved the family to the town of Bridgwater to work as a carter.
After leaving school, William found work at Barham Brothers’ Brickworks in the town. When war broke out, he enlisted in the Somerset Light Infantry almost as soon as he was able to, at the beginning of 1916.
Assigned to the 6th (Service) Battalion and Private Woodbury was sent out to the Western Front in April. He would almost certainly have seen action at the Battle of Delville Wood – part of the Somme offensive – and was wounded in the shoulder and arm on 18th August 1916.
Shipped back to the UK for treatment, William was admitted to the Western General Hospital in Cardiff, but tragically died from his wounds less than a fortnight later on 30th August 1916. He was just 17 years old.
His funeral was reported in both the Shepton Mallet Journal and the Central Somerset Gazette; his father, who had been serving in France as part of the Army Veterinary Corps, managed to return home for his son’s funeral.
William Alfred Woodbury lies at rest in the St John’s Cemetery in his home town of Bridgwater.
Death and Service 