William Crossan was born in 1892 in Ballinamore, Ireland. He was the fourth of five children to Patrick and Catherine Crossan.
William disappears from the 1911 Census of Ireland, but has joined the Irish Guards by the time war broke out.
Guardsman Crossan’s battalion was involved in the Battle of Mons, but it was during the fighting at Ypres that he was injured.
Shipped back to the UK for treatment, William passed away on 2nd November 1914. While details are scarce, presumably he died at one of the Red Cross Hospitals in the Sherborne area, as this is where he was buried.
Guardsman William Crossan lies at rest in Sherborne Cemetery.
Richard William Elcocks was born in Wellington, Shropshire, the second son of foundryman Thomas Elcocks and his wife Emma. Born in June 1883, he was one of nine children.
After initially becoming a printer’s apprentice, he enlisted in the Royal Welsh Fusiliers in May 1903. After his initial training and service, Private Elcocks was transferred to the Army Reserve in 1911.
In January 1914, Richard married Charlotte Shenton. Charlotte was a widow ten years his senior, and had two children, Albert and Fred.
When war broke out, Private Elcocks was again called up and shipped to France as part of the British Expeditionary Force. His records confirm that he received a gunshot wound to the left arm on 31st October 1914; the injury was enough for him to be shipped back to the UK for treatment.
He was treated in the Yeatman Hospital in Sherborne, Dorset, and appears to have been there for some time. His records state that he died on 26th June 1915 from an ‘intestical [intestinal?] obstruction following gun shot wound of left humerous’. He was 32 years of age.
Private Richard Elcocks lies at rest in Sherborne cemetery.
Some of the research on the Commonwealth War Graves has been fairly straightforward – information has been readily available on sites like Ancestry, or the death has been unusual or sudden enough for it to have made contemporary newspapers.
Other times, the search goes on for a while and only the tiniest of leads manages to turn up some information.
Private Stanley Sansom falls firmly into the second category.
Private Stanley Sansom
In a corner of Sherborne Cemetery stands a gravestone. It is dedicated to 20023 Private S Sansom of the Dorsetshire Regiment. He died on 31st March 1921, aged 27 years.
Searching just on a surname doesn’t turn up a great deal, even for one as seemingly uncommon as Sansom.
My default first sites for this research are the Commonwealth War Graves Commission and Find A Grave. Both sites, however, list the soldier’s name as Sanson, even though the stone clearly says Sansom.
The FAG site provides no other information, although the CWGC page does name the soldier’s father, Thomas Sanson of Sherborne. Again, an Ancestry search does not bring anyone by that name in Dorset.
My next option is usually the British Newspaper Archive; no Sansons are recorded, but the surname Sansom does turn up just after the date on the stone:
Mrs Sansom desires to thank all friends who have expressed sympathy with her in the sad bereavement she has sustained by the death of her husband.
Western Gazette: Friday 22nd April 1921
Nothing conclusive, but it did suggest that Sansom may be the correct spelling.
Back on Ancestry, Thomas Sansom doesn’t turn up anything, but a random check on the surname and specific date of death did show a few family trees for a Stanley Sansom, born in 1892. Again nothing conclusive here, particularly as none of the trees include any military records or spouses, but there was enough information to collate an overview of his life.
Stanley Sansom was born in September 1892 in Sherborne. He was one of six children to Thomas Sansom, a glove cutter, and his wife Jane.
The cloth business was a large employed in the Dorset town, and after leaving school, Stanley became an apprentice tailor.
There don’t appear to be any records of Private Sansom’s military service. However, he enlisted in the Dorsetshire Regiment, and his Service Number identifies that he served in the 1st/4th Battalion.
According to the Dorsetshire Regiment records, this battalion sailed for India on 9th October 1914, so Private Sansom must have enlisted at the outbreak of hostilities.
After a year’s training, his battalion moved to the Eastern Front, where soldiers saw action against the Turks in what is now Iraq. From what records there are, it can only be assumed that Private Sansom survived the war pretty much unscathed and returned to England in 1918 to be demobbed.
There is no record of Stanley marrying, so whether the Western Gazette’s article relates to him, or to another Sherborne Sansom is unclear.
All that can be confirmed is that Private Stanley Sansom died on 31st March 1921, aged 27.
He lies at rest in the cemetery of his home town in Dorset.
As I was writing this post, I happened to notice an additional inscription at the bottom of Stanley’s gravestone:
Also of Private J Sansom, Dorsetshire Regiment. Died at Basra June 1916
Stanley had a younger brother, Jack, who also enlisted in the 1st/4th Battalion. The brothers were shipped to India and Mesopotamia together; while Stanley came home, Jack died in battle and is buried in Basra War Cemetery. He was just 20 years old.
There is tantalisingly little information available about Private J Lewin, and what I have been able to identify has come from a variety of disparate sources.
Jonathan William Lewin was born in 1877/8 in Essex. By the time of the 1911 census, he was working as a painter in Colchester. He was living in the town with his wife, Agnes Cudmore, who he had married in early 1902. The couple had no children.
The remainder of the information of Private Lewin’s life comes from a piece in the Western Gazette:
The death has occurred at the Yeatman Hospital [Sherborne, Dorset] of Private Jonathan Lewin, of the Army Veterinary Corps. The deceased soldier had been at the Front for a year, and about three months ago was brought home sick and sent to the Yeatman Hospital. He was there found to be suffering from a malignant disease, and his recovery from the first was hopeless. Deceased, who belinged to Colchester, and was 38 years of age, leaves a widow but no children. The funeral took place yesterday and was attended by a number of wounded soldiers and the members of the VTC.
Western Gazette: Friday 7th July 1916.
Private Jonathan Lewin lies at rest in Sherborne Cemetery.
One of the reasons I love researching this type of history, is trying to discover the person behind the name on the gravestone. It seems such an additional loss, therefore, when the life of a brave soldier, like Private Lewin, has disappeared through time.
Louis Henry Townsend, also known as Henry, was born in the spring of 1881 in Leytonstone, Essex.
Much of Louis’ life remains elusive, he first appears on the census in 1911, and from this we know that he married Florence Annie Ridley (known as Annie) in December 1906. The couple had three children, Thomas, Florence and George.
Louis’ marriage record suggests his father’s name was Thomas Clark, although he also remains a bit of a mystery.
Again, Louis’ military service appears lost to time. He enlisted in the Lincolnshire Regiment, and fought on the Western Front.
The Western Chronicle (26th March 1915) confirms that Corporal Townsend was brought to the Greenhill Voluntary Aid Detachment Hospital in Sherborne, suffering from “a shot through the brain, and from the first was in an extremely precarious condition”.
Louis passed away from his wounds on 20th March 1915, aged 34. He lies at rest in Sherborne Cemetery.
Death and Service 