Victor George Evans was born in the autumn of 1882, one of eleven children to George and Charlotte Evans. George was a woodsman from Aldworth in Berkshire, and it was here that he and Charlotte raised their growing family.
There is little concrete information about Victor’s early life. While his family were living on Bethesda Street in Basildon, Berkshire, at the time of the 1901 census, Victor is noticeable by his absence.
On 29th January 1910, Victor married Edith Rains in Kensington, Middlesex. She appears to have been a dressmaker’s apprentice, and had been born in Moulton, Lincolnshire. The next year’s census recorded Victor employed as a butler for the Clutton family. His boss, Ralph Clutton, was a lawyer, and the family resided at 5 Vicarage Gate, not far from Kensington Palace. This time, however, it is Edith who is missing from the census record and, given that she had given birth to their one and only child, Phyllis, the year before, it is likely that she was recuperating elsewhere, possibly with the support of her family.
When war broke out, Victor was called upon to serve his country. On 22nd December 1916, he enlisted, joining the Royal Garrison Artillery as a Gunner. His service records show that 34 years of age and stood 5ft 7.5ins (1.71m) tall.
Victor was recorded as being a messenger, and he and Edith were living with his older sister, Rachel, at 17 Adeney Road in Hammersmith, Middlesex. The document suggests, however, that Phyllis was in the care of Edith’s parents in Lincolnshire, possible to enable both her and Victor to work.
Gunner Evans was assigned to the 270th Siege Battery, and he was soon sent to France. While based near Rouen in April 1918, he was badly injured through a number of shrapnel wounds, and medically evacuated to Britain for treatment. Admitted to a hospital in Paignton, Devon, there was little that could be done, other than being made comfortable. Victor succumbed to his wounds on 28th April 1918: he was 35 years of age.
It is likely that Edith would not have been able to afford for her husband to be brought back to Middlesex for burial. Instead, Victor George Evans was laid to rest in the ground of Paignton Cemetery.
Thomas Fidler was born on 15th May 1881 in Newbury, Berkshire and was the fourth of eight children to Charles and Sarah. Charles was a groom, who travelled where the work was, and, by the time of the 1901, the family has relocated to Whitchurch in Hampshire.
When he finished his schooling, Thomas found work as a dairyman. However, he had always had his sights on bigger and better things, and, having been a volunteer for the local militia, he was keen to become a full soldier. Things did not go immediately to plan though, and he was initially turned down because he was under height – he was just 5ft 3ins (1.6m) tall when he turned 18.
But Thomas was persistent, and, on 27th June 1898, he was formally enrolled in the Hampshire Regiment. Along with his height, his service records confirm other details about the young man he had become. The document show that he weighed 124lbs (56.2kg), and that he had brown hair, brown eyes and a fresh complexion. The records advise that he was considered fit for duty, but also note that he was given special authority to enlist, presumably to bypass the concerns about his height.
Private Thomas Fidler would go on to build up quite a military career for himself. He spent nearly two years on home soil, before his unit was shipped out to South Africa. During his time in the colony, he served in a number of the campaigns, and was awarded with the Queen’s South Africa medal, including clasps for Cape Colony, Orange Free State and Transvaal, and the King’s South Africa Medal 1901-1902.
After more than two years spent overseas, Thomas’ unit returned to Britain. He would remain on home soil until 1903, extending his service beyond the five compulsory years, and choosing to remain on active duty, rather than being stepped down to reserve status. In September of that year, his unit was on the move again, and he was transferred to Malta.
It would not be until September 1905 that Private Fidler saw home soil again. He was formally stood down from duty the following June and assigned to the Army Reserve. Interestingly, his transfer papers recorded that his conduct was indifferent, disobedient… inclined to drink.
Thomas’ attitude over the years was evidenced by his entries in the Regimental Defaulter Book. He was disciplined no fewer than twelve times during his military career. His offences included being absent from parade and using insubordinate language. While stationed in Malta, he was punished for being drunk four times. Over the years, Private Fidler spent 125 days confined to barracks, and was fined a total of £1 2s 6d for his crimes.
When he was not confined to barracks, Private Fidler would likely be found in a sick bay. Between January 1901 and September 1905, he spent 342 days in hospital with conditions ranging from fevers, psoriasis, scabies and gonorrhoea.
On 22nd March 1905, while serving in Malta, Thomas was admitted to hospital having suffered a fractured jaw following a scuffle. The cause of the injury is recorded in detail in an eleven-page report, which outlined that Private Fidler had been out in Valetta, and ended up quite drunk. He was approached by a couple of military police officers, and became abusive towards them. While trying to take off his boots, a private from another regiment, who was also drunk, came along and punched him in the face, fracturing his jaw. Both men were arrested and taken back to barracks. The investigation in to the incident found that, while Private Fidler was off duty at the time, he was to blame for the altercation.
In June 1906, Thomas returned to civvy street, and to his former job as a dairyman. On 5th February 1907, he married Tryphena Snook, who was the daughter of his employer. The couple had had a son the previous year, and would go on to have three more children in the next few years.
The 1911 census found the young family living in Sparsholt, Hampshire, the household being made up of Thomas, Tryphena and their older two children, Tryphena’s parents, William and Emma, and a boarder, William Clark, who was a carter on the farm.
By the summer of 1914, Thomas had been formally stood down from the army, his contract coming to an end on 26th June. A storm was brewing over the Channel, however, and he would soon be called upon to play his part once more.
Details of Thomas’ re-enlistment into the army have been lost to time. It is likely that he was called upon quite quickly. He was assigned to the South Wales Borderers, and, with the experience he had under his belt, was given the rank of Lance Corporal.
Thomas’ unit – the 4th (Service) Battalion – was initially sent to France, and he arrived there early in July 1915. Within a matter of weeks, however, the battalion moved on to the Eastern Mediterranean, ending up at Gallipoli.
Lance Corporal Fidler’s time in on the peninsula would have been fraught with danger. In the autumn of 1915, he was badly injured and was medically evacuated to Britain for treatment. Admitted to hospital in Devon, his wounds were to prove too severe, and he passed away on 5th November, at the age of 34.
The funeral rook place at Paignton… of Lance-Corpl. Thos. Fidler, of the 4th South Wales Borderers, who died at Oldway Hospital on Friday as a result of wounds sustained at Gallipoli. The widow and other mourners followed, and the Matron of the Hospital (Miss Blackmore) was among those present. Wounded convalescents from Oldway and a Company of the 7th Devons, under Capt. Brearley, attended, and the Devons provided a firing party.
[Exeter and Plymouth Gazette – Tuesday 09 November 1915]
Thomas Fidler was laid to rest in Paignton Cemetery.
Ernest Richards was born in Bath, Somerset, 1886, and was the youngest of four children to Emma Richards. Emma was widowed when Ernest was an infant, and no baptism records remain to confirm who he was.
The fate of the Richards family is outlined through the consecutive census records. The 1891 document shows Emma and her children living at 4 Camden Row, to the north of the city centre. Emma was employed as a needlewoman, while Ernest’s oldest brother, Herbert, was working as an errand boy. The family shared their home with widowed laundress Emily Clarke, helping with the bills.
By the time of the 1901 census, the family had moved to 1 Claremont Row. A bit further out of the centre of the city, this offered more space for the growing children. Emma was still working as a needlewoman, but three of the children were gainfully employed: Ernest as a printer’s errand boy, Herbert as a grocer’s carter, and their brother William as a book shop porter.
The 1911 census found Emma still living at 1 Claremont Row. She was 53 by this point, and no longer working, but three of her children were still living there, and bringing in an income. William was a milkman, Ernest a porter, and her youngest child, daughter Gladys, was a machinist.
War was closing in on Europe by this point, but from here on in, Ernest’s trail gets a bit sketchy. Later records confirm that he had enlisted by the summer of 1916, and they he had joined the Coldstream Guards. Attached to the 5th (Reserve) Battalion, Private Richards appears to have been based on home soil.
Ernest seems to have been hospitalised in February 1917. Sadly, there is little additional information about his condition. While his regiment was based in Windsor, Berkshire, there is no evidence to confirm whether his barracks where also there, so it isn’t clear to which hospital he was admitted.
Private Richard would succumb to his ailment. He passed away, while in hospital, on 10th February 1917: he was 30 years of age.
Ernest Richards’ body was taken back to Somerset for burial. He was laid to rest in Bath’s majestic Locksbrook Cemetery, not far from his family home.
Bertie Claude Gannicott was born in Stalbridge, Dorset, in the summer of 1893. One of twelve children, he was the son of railway signalman Edward Gannicott and his wife, Emily. The family moved to Highbridge, Somerset, when Bertie was a babe-in-arms, and so this was the town he was to know as home for his whole life.
When Bertie completed his schooling, he found work as a cellerman in a local brewery. When war broke out in 1914, he turned 21 years of age. He seemed keen to serve his King and Country and, while service records for him no longer exist, it is clear that he had enlisted in the army by the spring of 1918.
Private Gannicott joined the Royal Army Service Corps and was attached to the 61st Remount Squadron. It’s not possible to confirm whether he saw action overseas, although his unit would have been responsible for supplying the army with horses and mules for the war effort.
Bertie was based in Berkshire towards the end of the war. He fell ill in the autumn of 1918, contracting pneumonia. Admitted to the No. 5 War Hospital in Reading, this was a condition to which he would succumb. He passed away on 19th November, at the age of 25 years old.
Bertie Claude Gannicott was taken back to Somerset for burial. He was laid to rest in the family plot in Highbridge Cemetery.
Richard Harcourt Whitting was born on 21st March 1900 in the Somerset village of Uphill. The younger of two children, his parents were local landowner and Justice of the Peace Charles Whitting and his second wife, Jessie. The 1911 census records father, mother and two children residing at Uphill Grange, where they were supported by six live-in staff: a cook, parlour maid, two house maids, a kitchen maid and a nurse.
As the son of a gentleman, education was an expected prospect for young Richard. Indeed, after finishing his schooling locally, he was sent to the Royal Military College in Sandhurst.
He entered the school in 1913 and left in April 1918. He was then Head of the Modern Side, and also a good runner who achieved a fine record when he won the Junior Athletic Cup and, still more, as mentioned in a notice of him in the Meteor of October 16th, 1918… “he had very delightful manners, and a sympathetic appreciation of the difficulties of other people, which is less rare in women than in men. These qualities, combined with a great fund of common sense, made him a particularly helpful and agreeable companion in all kinds of occupations, from spraying a potato field to managing a House.
He was intended for the University and the Bar, but the War caused him to leave School early and to go to the [Royal Military College], Sandhurst. There he showed himself a most promising Cadet, and continued his athletic successes by winning the Mile and being in the winning team in the Relay Race.
Memorials of the Rugbeans Who Fell in The Great War, Volume VIII
It was while he was at the college, that Richard met his untimely end.
On Saturday [21st September 1918] a cadet of the Royal Military College, named Richard H Whitting, was killed while cycling along the Bagshot main road near St Alban’s Church. Deceased, who was accompanied by two other cadets’ names respectively Money and Shute, was holding on to the rear of a motor vehicle, when his bike swerved, and he was thrown on his head. At the inquest a verdict of “Accidental death” was returned.
Reading Mercury: Saturday 28th September 1918
Cadet Whitting was just 18 years of age when he died. His body was brought back to Somerset for burial: he was laid to rest in the family plot at St Nicholas’ Church in Uphill.
Reginald Thomas Bainton was born in Bath, Somerset, in the spring of 1889. The second of five children, his parents were bakers and confectioners Thomas and Mary Bainton.
While Reginald’s older brother Robert followed in his father’s trade, the 1911 census recorded that he had followed a different route, and was working as a hairdresser and tobacconist.
On Christmas Day 1913, Reginald married Henrietta Skinner, who was the daughter of a farmer. The couple went on to have a son, Reginald, who was born in July 1916.
War was, by this point, raging across Europe, and Reginald stepped up to play his part for King and Country. He enlisted in the autumn of 1916, and was assigned to the Royal Army Service Corps. Initially stationed in London, he moved to a camp near Reading, Berkshire, in March 1917.
One evening towards the end of that month, tragedy occurred.
[Private Bainton] was missing from his company, and when his service cap was found on the banks of the Thames there were fears that the worst had befallen him. On receipt of the news of his disappearance his wife proceeded to Reading in the hope of getting some information respecting him, and she remained there until the discovery of the body in the Thames on Monday. During the short period he was in the Reading camp, Private Bainton acted as the storekeeper.
At the inquest… the much-decomposed body was identified by [Reginald’s] father, and medical evidence was given that it had probably been in the water for three weeks to it is highly probable that Private Bainton was drowned on the first day he was mussed. There was not the slightest evidence as to how he got into the river, and the jury returned a verdict of “Found drowned”.
Bath Chronicle and Weekly Gazette: Saturday 28th April 1917
The date of Private Bainton’s death was recorded as 23rd April 1917 – the day he was found. He was 27 years of age.
Reginald Thomas Bainton’s body was brought back to Somerset for burial. He was laid to rest in St James’ Cemetery in his home city of Bath.
Alexander Popham Spurway was born on 8th April 1891 in Newbury, Berkshire. He was the second of six children to Edward and Gertrude Spurway. Edward was a clergyman, and the family moved to Heathfield in Somerset when Alexander was a small boy. Education was key to Edward and, the 1901 census records show Alexander as being a boarder at the Portmore School in Weymouth, Dorset.
Reverend Spurway set the family up well in Heathfield: by the time of the next census in 1911, the family were living in the village rectory, with five members of staff.
Alexander, meanwhile, had taken a different route, entering the Royal Naval College at Osborne on the Isle of Wight in January 1904. He was a keen sportsman and, while there, he represented the college at both cricket and football.
In September 1908, he passed out from the college as a Midshipman, and served on HMS Canopus in the Mediterranean. His career continued, and he was made Sub-Lieutenant in December 1911, and Lieutenant two years later.
Reverend Spurway died at home in February 1914 and, by the time war broke out, Lieutenant Spurway was assigned to HMS Achilles. He remained on board the cruiser for the next two years and it was during this time that he developed diabetes: something that was to prove an ongoing issue for him.
Returning home in the autumn of 1915, the condition was to prove too much, and he passed away on 29th November 1915, at the age of 24 years old.
Alexander Popham Spurway was laid to rest in the graveyard of his late father’s church, St John the Baptist in Heathfield.
Lieutenant Spurway (from findagrave.com)
Sadly, Alexander was not the only member of the Spurway family to lose their life as a result of the war.
Richard Popham Spurway, Alexander’s older brother, was a 2nd Lieutenant in the Somerset Light Infantry, and was attached to the Hampshire Regiment, when it was moved to Gallipoli in 1915. He was killed on 13th August 1915, and is commemorated on the Helles Memorial at Canakkale, Turkey.
Alexander’s younger brother, George Vyvyan Spurway, joined the Royal Fusiliers, before transferring to the Machine Gun Corps. He had arrived in France in September 1916, and was killed while fighting on the Western Front on 28th March 1918. He was laid to rest at Arras and is commemorated on the memorial there.
Hubert Edward Fox was born in the spring of 1865, the youngest of five children to Alfred and Eliza Fox. Alfred was a baker, from Faversham, and it was in the town that he and Eliza raised their young family.
When he finished school, Hubert found work as a carter and labourer. He served in the King’s Royal Rifles for eight years, spending two of those stationed in Egypt.
In 1894 John married Elizabeth Rebecca Harris in their home town. The couple set up home in the Abbey Road, to the north of the town, and went on to have six children between 1896 and 1909.
When war broke out, Hubert enlisted to play his part once more. He joined up in 1915, and was assigned to the Royal Defence Corps. Private Fox was on guard duty at the Uplees Munitions Factory on 2 April 1916, when a series of explosions ripped through the base. The loss of life was horrific – more than 100 men and boys were killed – and Hubert was fortunate enough to escape serious injury.
In May 1918, Private Fox was invalided out of the army on medical grounds. He was sent to a hospital in Reading, Berkshire, returning to Kent after around six weeks. He was treated in the town’s nursing home, but never fully recovered from his illness: he passed away on 22nd August 1918, at the age of 53 years of age.
Hubert Edward Fox was laid to rest in the Borough Cemetery of his home town, Faversham, not far from the family home in Abbey Road.
At the time of Hubert’s funeral, his eldest son, also called Hubert, was reported as missing in action.
Hubert Jr had enlisted in the 10th Battalion of the Queen’s Own (Royal West Kent Regiment) in August 1915, embarking for France the following May. After two years, Private Fox Jr moved to Italy with his division, but returned to the Western Front just a few months later.
In April 1918, Hubert was reported missing in action; he was later confirmed to be a Prisoner of War, and was eventually released and repatriated home in December 1918.
Hubert found work as a labourer and night watchman; the 1939 Register records him living in his Abbey Road home with his mother. He died the summer of 1968, at the age of 71 years old.
Alan Edward Lloyd was born in around 1899, the second of five children – all boys – to William and Edith Lloyd. Both of his parents were Welsh, and his older brother was born in Cardiff. Railway clerk William moved around the country with work, however, and Alan was born in Lydney, Gloucestershire, his younger brother in Paddington, London, and his two youngest siblings were born in Windsor, Berkshire.
There is little information about Alan’s early life; what is clear is that, by the autumn of 1918, he had been in the army, reaching the rank of Lieutenant. He transferred across to the newly formed Royal Air Force and, in December that year was training as a Flight Cadet at Shotwick Airfield near Chester.
On the 4th December, Alan was flying his Sopwith Camel, when he got into a flat spin; the aircraft crashed and Alan was killed. He was just 19 years old.
Alan Edward Lloyd was brought to Devon – where his family were now living – for burial. He was laid to rest in the graveyard of All Saints Church in Highweek, near Newton Abbot.
Bertie Ball was born in Westcott, Berkshire, in the spring of 1890, the oldest of ten children to John and Matilda Ball. John was from Berkshire, who raised his family in Wantage. He began life as a farm labourer, but, by the time of the 1901 census, he had found other employment, as a groom at a racing stable.
Details of Bertie’s life are scarce. When he left school, he found work as a garden labourer and, when war broke out, he enlisted in the Royal Army Service Corps. Private Ball was assigned to the Mechanical Transport Company, but whether he served overseas or on home soil is unknown.
Bertie died on 4th March 1915 from cerebrospinal meningitis. He was just 24 years old. He was laid to rest in the graveyard of St John the Baptist Church in Midsomer Norton – I can find no Somerset connection, so can only imagine that he passed away in or near the town.
Bertie’s younger brother Percival Ball also served in the First World War. He served with the 5th Battalion of the Wiltshire Regiment and fought in Mesopotamia. Sadly, he was killed there, dying on 5th April 1916. He was just 17 years of age. He is commemorated on the Basra Memorial in Iraq.
Death and Service 