Edward Percival Augustus Topley was born on 6th November 1899 in Woolwich, Kent. He was the third of seven children to Percival and Sarah Topley. Percival was a grocer, and the 1901 census found the family living at 64 Eglinton Road, Plumstead.
Details about Edward’s early life are sketchy. There is a record of him learning to fly at the Cambridge School of Flying, and gaining his wings on 4th November 1917. “…he went through a course at the Royal Naval College, Greenwich. From there he was sent to Beaulieu Aerodrome, Hants…” [Kentish Independent: Friday 15th November 1918]
Edward rose to the rank of Second Lieutenant when the Royal Flying Corps and Royal Naval Air Service merged to become the Royal Air Force on 1st April 1918. Attached to the 29th Depot Training Station, he seems to have built up a fair amount of flying experience.
On 30th October 1918, Second Lieutenant Topley was flying his Sopwith Camel, when the engine stalled, and the aircraft crashed to the ground. Edward was killed instantly. He was a week shy of his nineteenth birthday.
The body of Edward Percival Augustus Topley – “a very promising young officer, and loved by all who knew him” [Kentish Independent: Friday 15th November 1918] – was taken to St Paul’s Church, East Boldre, not far from the base he had begun to call home, and laid to rest.
Second Lieutenant Edward Topley (from britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk)
Much regret has been felt… at the death of Rev. JD Dathan MA, chaplain to the Royal Marines, at the age of 50 years. His death was due to pneumonia, caused by catching a chill while doing temporary duty… at the [Royal Naval Hospital, Chatham, Kent]. The eldest son of Captain JC Dathan RN, the deceased gentleman was educated at Christ’s Hospital and Cambridge, where he obtained the degree of MA. He entered the Royal Navy as a chaplain in 1896, and served on the China Station during the Boxer riots. For five years he was chaplain of Bermuda Dockyard and Hospital. He also served commissions in HMS Monmouth, Goliath and Russell. He was posted to the Royal Marine Barracks in July 1914, but on the outbreak of war he was appointed to HMS Formidable, and was transferred from the ship a week before she was lost. He was subsequently sent tot he Dardanelles for service in the Implacable at the first landing in April 1915. Later he joined the Italian Fleet, and was subsequently recalled to the Royal Marine Barracks. Three of the deceased officer’s brothers – Paymr.-in-Chief Ellis Dathan, Com. Hartley Dathan, and Eng.-Com. William Dathan – are serving in the Royal Navy.
[Naval & Military Record and Royal Dockyards Gazette: Wednesday 16th January 1918]
Joseph Duncan Dathan was born in 1866 in Halifax, Nova Scotia. The second of seven children, his parents were Joseph and Emma Dathan.
By the time of the 1891 census, the Dathan family had moved back to Britain. Joseph Sr and Emma were living in Portsea, Hampshire, while the younger Joseph was studying at Christ’s Hospital. The next return, taken in 1901, found him having taken up a role as curate at St John’s Church in Ipswich, Suffolk. He was, by this point, living on Foxhall Road on the western edge of the town.
On 25th February 1904, Joseph married Alicia Cane. The daughter of a vicar, she lived in Ipswich, and the couple married in the local parish church. By this point, Joseph was based in Portsmouth, Hampshire, and this is where the young couple set up home. Alicia gave birth to their first child, John, that November. The couple’s second son, Joseph, was born in 1906 and their third, daughter Alicia, was born in Bermuda while the family were stationed out there with Reverend Dathan’s work.
Joseph’s connection to the navy continued much as the newspaper reported. He died from pneumonia on 7th January 1918: he was 51 years of age.
Reverend Joseph Duncan Dathan was laid to rest in the naval section of Woodlands Cemetery in Gillingham, Kent, a place he would have known well, given its proximity to the Royal Naval Dockyard in Chatham, Kent, where he had been based.
Edward Charles Vale was born in the spring of 1890, one of ten children to William and Ellen. Born in Cambridgeshire, William was employed by the local railways, becoming a signalman by the time of the 1901 census. The family were raised in Great Shelford, before moving to the Ely area in the early 1900s.
By the time of the 1911 census, Edward was the oldest of three of his siblings to still be living at home. The Vales were living at 12 Granta Terrace, Stapleford, and Edward was employed as a domestic gardener.
When war broke out, Edward volunteered to serve his country. Full service details are lost to time, but he had enlisted in the Royal Fusiliers by the spring of 1915. By June of that year, Private Vale was fighting in the Balkans.
At some point during the conflict, Edward transferred to the Oxfordshire & Buckinghamshire Light Infantry. He remained in the Easter Mediterranean, but was badly wounded in the summer of 1917.
Medically evacuated to Britain, Private Vale was admitted to the Voluntary Aid Detachment hospital that had been set up at Knightshayes Court, Devon. While details are unclear, Edward’s injuries were to prove too severe. He passed away on 9th October 1917, at the age of 27 years old.
Edward Charles Vale was laid to rest in the peaceful graveyard of St Thomas’ Church in Chevithorne, not far from the hospital in which he had passed.
Albert John Stokes was born in the autumn of 1878, the fourth of seven children to John and Mary Ann Stokes. John was a cord winder from Puriton in Somerset, and it was in the village, in the house next to his parents, that he and Mary Ann raised their young family.
By the 1890s, John had turned his hand to boot making. When he finished his schooling, however, Albert found more manual work, and by the time he got married in 1903, he was working as a quarry labourer.
Albert’s wife was Minnie Nichols, a cooper’s daughter, who lived just up the road from the Stokes family. They married in Bridgwater Registry Office on Christmas Eve 1903. The newlyweds set up home in a small cottage in Puriton, and went on to have six children, although only four survived childhood.
When war came to Europe, Albert was one of the first to join up. He enlisted on 7th December 1914, and was assigned to the Royal Field Artillery as a Driver. His service records give an insight into the man he had become: he was 5ft 7ins (1.7m) tall, weighed in at 136lbs (61.7kg) and was of good physical development.
Driver Stokes spent the next eight months on home soil. He was sent to France on 21st July 1915, and was involved in the fighting at Loos. It was here, that he developed a persistent cough and, by October, he was back on home soil. That winter Albert contracted influenza, which then developed into haemoptysis.
While Driver Stokes did recover, he was admitted to the Voluntary Aid Detachment Hospital in Bishops Stortford in May 1916, having come down with influenza once more. He was transferred to the 1st Eastern General Hospital in Cambridge for a medical assessment, and this led to an eventual discharge from the army in August.
Albert returned to Somerset after leaving the Royal Field Artillery, although his trail does go cold. He was at home when he passed away on 27th June 1917, at the age of 39 years old. The cause of his passing is not recorded, but it is likely to have been as a result of a repeat of the conditions that had led to him leaving the military.
Albert John Stokes was laid to rest in the peaceful graveyard of St Michael’s Church in his home village of Puriton.
William Walton was born in St Neots, Cambridgeshire, early in 1868, the oldest child of William Moran and Hannah Walton. The couple married shortly after William’s birth and went on to have six further children. William Sr was a bricklayer’s labourer from Cambridgeshire, and until his mother’s death in 1903, William Jr used his father’s surname.
By the time of the 1881 census, William Sr had moved the family to London, where work was more plentiful. It was here that his eldest son met Annie Vigo; they married in Bethnal Green in August 1886 – using Hannah’s maiden name – and went on to have a son – also called William – the same year.
William was also working as a labourer by this point, but by the mid-1890s he and Annie had five children, and he needed a steadier income. In August 1895, he enlisted in the Royal Navy for a period of 12 years. His service record show that he stood 5ft 4ins (1.63m) tall, had brown hair, blue eyes and a fair complexion. He was also noted to have a scar on his head and an anchor tattoo on his left forearm.
Stoker 2nd Class Walton was initially based at HMS Victory, the training base in Portsmouth. By April 1896 he had been given his first off-shore assignment, HMS Fox. This was a cruiser, and he spent more than three years aboard, gaining a promotion to Stoker 1st Class in the process.
The summer of 1899 saw William back on land, as he was assigned to HMS Pembroke, the shore-based establishment at the Royal Naval Dockyard in Chatham. He remained here for the next three years, and returned to the dockyard in between assignments at sea.
In August 1907 Stoker Walton’s term of service with the navy came to an end, and he was placed on reserve. By this point he and Annie had had two more children, bringing the total to seven. The 1911 census found the family living in London, where William was still recorded as a stoker.
War was imminent, and, when hostilities broke out, William was recalled. This time, and probably because of his age, he was wholly based on land, spending nine months in Portsmouth, and the rest of the time in Chatham.
HMS Pembroke was a busy place and, in the summer of 1917, it had reached capacity. The Drill Hall was used as temporary accommodation, and this is where Stoker Walton found himself billeted.
On 3rd September, the German Air Force was trialling night raids on English locations to avoid suffering casualties in daylight; that night Chatham found itself in their flight path. The Drill Hall received a direct hit, and Stoker 1st Class Walton was killed, along with close to 100 others. He was 49 years old [the gravestone suggests a different age].
William Walton was laid to rest in the Woodlands Cemetery in Gillingham, within walking distance of the dockyard that had become his home. He was buried alongside the other victims of the Chatham Air Raid.
William’s younger brother Arthur Moran was also involved in the hostilities of the First World War. As a Bombardier in the Royal Garrison Artillery, he was caught up in the fighting on the Western Front, losing his life on 6th February 1917, seven months before his older brother. He was laid to rest in the Cité Bonjean Military Cemetery in Armentières, France.
Charles Lemmon was born in Norwich, Norfolk on 12th July 1892. He was one of ten children and the son of bricklayer Henry Lemmon and his wife Sophia.
When Charles left school, he found work as an errand boy; by the time of the 1911 census, he had moved to Cambridge. He was living with John Buol, a Swiss confectioner and pastry chef who had set up a restaurant in the centre of the city, opposite King’s College.
The move from Norfolk to Cambridgeshire must has ignited a yearning for travel, however. Within a year, Charles had enlisted in the Royal Navy, and was taken on as a Stoker 2nd Class. His naval records show that he stood at 5ft 2ins (1.57m) tall, had brown hair, grey eyes and a fair complexion. It was also noted that he had a scar on his left leg.
Stoker Lemmon was set to see the world. After his initial training at HMS Pembroke – the Royal Naval Dockyard in Chatham, Kent – he was assigned to HMS Berwick, an armoured cruiser that sailed between England and the Americas.
The following year, Charles was reassigned to HMS Swiftsure, and received a promotion to Stoker 1st Class. He returned to HMS Pembroke in May 1916, and, after a couple of months on land, boarded HMS Titania, a submarine depot ship that had recently seen action in the Battle of Jutland.
Stoker Lemmon spent just under a year on the Titania, before again returning to Chatham in the spring of 1917. HMS Pembroke was a crowded place that summer, Charles was billeted in temporary accommodation in the dockyard’s Drill Hall.
On 3rd September, the German Air Force was trialling night raids on English locations; Chatham found itself in the line of fire. The Drill Hall received a direct hit, and Stoker 1st Class Lemmon was killed, along with close to 100 other servicemen resting there. He was just 25 years of age.
The servicemen who lost their lives in the Chatham Air Raid, including Charles Lemmon, were laid to rest in the Woodlands Cemetery in nearby Gillingham.
Percy White was born in the spring of 1890, the youngest of four children to Frank and Fanny White. Frank was a tailor from Frome, Somerset, and this is where the family were raised and settled for most of Percy’s life.
By the time of the 1911 census, Frank and Fanny had been married for 30 years. Frank was still working as a tailor, while Percy’s three older siblings – all girls – were working as silk weavers and packers. Percy had moved away from the family’s clothing heritage, and had found work as a hairdresser.
War was on the horizon, however, and Percy was called upon to do his duty for King and Country. He was initially assigned as a Private to the King’s (Liverpool Regiment) when he joined up in the autumn of 1914. Full details of his military service are not readily available, but it seems that he served on the Front Line in France, but was invalided out late in 1917.
By that point, he had met Bessie Cundick, who had been born in Wiltshire. They married in Andover in the spring of 1916, when they were both 26 years old.
Back in England, and discharged from the King’s (Liverpool Regiment), Percy was transferred to the Labour Corps and, for the last year of the war had done agricultural work in Cambridgeshire. After the armistice was signed, Frank fell ill and died on 4th February 1919.
Private White attended the funeral at the Vallis Road Cemetery in Frome with his family, before returning to his unit. By this point, however, he had himself fallen ill with influenza, and was admitted to the East General Hospital in Cambridge. The condition was to prove too much, however, and he passed away on 16th March, less than six weeks after his father’s death. He was just 29 years of age.
Percy’s body was brought back to Frome; he too was laid to rest in the Dissenters’ Cemetery in Vallis Road, Frome.
Basil Scott-Holmes was born on 2nd February 1884 in the Somerset village of Wookey. The oldest of two children, his father was Liverpool-born Thomas Scott-Holmes and his wife, Katherine. When Basil was born, Thomas was the vicar of St Matthew’s Church, Wookey, but by 1901, he had risen to the role of clergyman – and subsequently Chancellor – at Wells Cathedral.
Basil’s pedigree stood him in good stead. Initially educated in Llandaff, South Wales, he subsequently attended Sherborne School in Dorset. Sent up to Cambridge, he studied history at Sidney Sussex College.
After leaving university, Basil spent time in Europe learning German and French. He was then assigned the role of Assistant Commissioner in North Nigeria but, after a year there he was invalided home taking up a teaching role at the Bristol Grammar School in 1912.
In July 1913, Basil married Barbara Willey, a surgeon’s daughter from Reigate, Surrey. The marriage record shows that Basil was registrar for an architectural association by this point; the couple went on to have two children, daughters Annette and Prudence.
When the war broke out, he was obviously keen to do his bit. In September 1914 he enlisted in the Royal Army Service Corps, before gaining a commission in the King’s Royal Rifle Corps a couple of months later. In the spring of 1916, Lieutenant Scott-Holmes had been seconded to the Machine Gun Corps, although it is unclear whether he served abroad during any of his time in the army.
On the evening of 24th October 1916, Lieutenant Scott-Holmes was riding in a motorcycle sidecar through central London, on the way back to camp. A local newspaper picked up the story:
…they stopped when going through Wandsworth to re-light the near light, and in the dark a motor omnibus ran into them, and Lieutenant [Scott-Holmes], who was strapped in the side-car, was, with the car, flung across the road. He died as he was being taken to Wandsworth Hospital. At the subsequent inquest, a verdict of “accidental death” was returned.
Central Somerset Gazette: Friday 3rd November 1916
Basil Scott-Holmes was just 32 years old. His body was brought back to Somerset; he was laid to rest in the cemetery at Wells Cathedral.
John Scrace was born on 31st July 1892 in Chatham, Kent, the oldest of five children to John and Adelaide Scrace. John Sr was a relieving officer for the Medway Board of Guardians, a role which involved “taking charge of poor or insane persons not otherwise cared for” [census1891.com]. Adelaide worked in a similar role, as an infant protection visitor.
It is fair to say, therefore, that John Jr had a very supportive childhood. He attended King’s School in Rochester, where he obtained a scholarship to Peterhouse College, Cambridge.
When war broke out, John was keen to do his part. Initially joining The Buffs (the East Kent Regiment), he transferred across to the newly-formed Royal Air Force in June 1918. By this point he had risen to the rank of Lieutenant, and, as part of his new RAF role, was based at Driffield in Yorkshire.
On 24th August 1918, the aircraft John was flying at the base, spun into the ground, and John was killed instantly. A subsequent inquest identified that “the cause of the accident was due to the fact that, for reasons unknown, part of the top of the left-hand plane of the machine crumpled up in the air and thereby [caused] the pilot to lose control of his machine.” [rafmuseumstoryvault.org.uk] Lieutenant Scrace was just 26 years of age.
John Scrace was buried in Christ Church Churchyard in Luton, Kent; he is commemorated in Woodlands Cemetery in nearby Gillingham.
Arthur George Poole was born in Brislington, Somerset, in April 1893. His father, George, was a master builder, and with his mother, Rhoda, the family raise their five children in the Bristol suburb.
Arthur was obvious a bright lad; he attended the Bristol Grammar School, excelling at football, hockey and cricket. After finishing school, he joined a firm of Bristol solicitors and was also appointed secretary of the Bristol Law Society. He went on to continue his studies, when he was accepted to read law at Emmanuel College, Cambridge.
The war was on the horizon, however, and he was called upon to do his duty.
He joined Bristol’s Own (12th Gloucester Regiment) in 1914, and was musketry officer at Chiseldon for some months before going to France in 1915, where he was attached to the 6th Gloucester Regiment.
Within three months he had a severe attack of trench fever, and was home on sick leave for a few weeks. He was severely wounded in October 1917, and came back to England for good. Some months later he was mentioned in despatches. He spent a year in hospital, and although not discharged, was allowed to resume his law studies.
Gloucestershire Echo: Saturday 14th December 1918
While in hospital, Captain Poole contracted influenza, which then became pneumonia. Although recovering from his injuries, it was these conditions that were to get the better of him, and he passed away on 23rd November 1918, at the age of 25 years old.
Arthur George Poole was laid to rest in the pretty graveyard of St Andrew’s Church in Clevedon, Somerset, where his parents now lived.
Death and Service 