Category Archives: Dorset

Commonwealth War Graves, Dorset, Great War, history, illness, photography, Royal Engineers, Sapper, Somerset, story, war

Sapper William Locke

Leave a comment
Sapper William Locke

William Locke was born in the spring of 1885, the sixth of ten children. His parents were George and Sarah Locke, both of whom were from Chard, Somerset, and it was here that William and his siblings were raised.

George worked in the local lace factory, and the 1891 census provides a snapshot of where the Lockes lived. The document notes that the family’s neighbours were a sawyer, launderess and a chimney sweep.

William did not follow in his father’s – or siblings’ – trade when he left school. Instead, he first found work as an ironmonger’s porter, then as a plumber.

On 5th April 1915, William married Mabel Male, a gardener’s daughter from Barrington, Somerset. War had come to Europe, and it seems that William was aware that he would shortly receive notice for him to play his part. The couple were by now living in Parkstone, Dorset, and William had changed career again: his service records confirm that he was a line telegraphist at the time he enlisted.

William enlisted in the Royal Engineers in Bournemouth on 29th July 1915: his records note that he was 5ft 3ins (1.6m) tall, 122lbs (55.3kg) in weight and had blue eyes, brown hair and a fresh complexion.

Sapper Locke spent a year at the regiment’s Stratford Depot, learning the skills he would need for the front line. He had leave before he was then dispatched to the Front Line and arrived in France on 29th May 1916.

In September, Mabel gave birth to a son the couple called Roy. She had, by this time, returned to Somerset, moving to Chard, to be near William’s family.

Sapper Locke remained in France until the autumn of 1918. He came home in November, but was unwell. A doctor attended, and noted influenza that has developed into pneumonia. Sadly, the conditions were to take William’s life. He passed away at home on 7th November 1918, his death, according to the doctor, directly attributable to his army service. He was aged just 34 years old.

Mabel returned to her family home in Barrington, and William Locke was laid to rest in the graveyard of the village’s St Mary’s Church. His burial was on 11th November, the day the armistice was signed.

Commonwealth War Graves, Dorset, Great War, history, illness, Machine Gun Corps, photography, Private, Somerset, story, war

Private Edgar Bowditch

Leave a comment
Private Edgar Bowditch

Edgar George Bowditch was born in the spring of 1887, in the Dorset village of Melbury Osmond. One of seven children, his parents were William and Sarah Bowditch. William was an agricultural labourer turned gamekeeper, and Edgar helped his father out when he left school.

William passed away in 1911, and Edgar fell off the radar until March 1914, when he married local mason’s daughter Rosetta Morris. The couple settled down in her home village of West Coker, Somerset.

When war was declared, Edgar stepped up to serve his King and Country, and enlisted in the Machine Gun Corps as a Private. He was assigned to the 37th Battalion, and certainly saw action overseas. He “came through without a scratch and in good health until demobilised in France.” [Western Chronicle: Friday 21st February 1919]

Private Bowditch was unwell when he arrived back in West Coker on 4th February 1919. While his condition is unclear, it worsened, and he passed away at home ten days later. He was 32 years of age.

Edgar George Bowditch was laid to rest in the graveyard of St Martin’s Church in his adopted home of West Coker.

Rosetta married again in 1921, to a John Axe. The couple remained in the same part of Somerset, John dying in 1947. Rosetta lived on, passing away in Yeovil in 1963, at the age of 77 years old.

Commonwealth War Graves, Dorset, Dorsetshire Regiment, Great War, history, photography, Private, Somerset, story, unknown, war

Private William Tewkesbury

Leave a comment
Private William Tewkesbury

William Gilbert Tewkesbury was born in Ilchester, Somerset, in the autumn of 1881. The middle of three children (although his older brother died in 1887), his parents were William and Jane Tewkesbury. William Sr was a farm labourer, and this is something that William Jr and his younger brother, Hedley, also went into.

When war arrived on Europe’s shores, William Jr stepped up to play his part. Full details of his military service are, sadly, lost to time, but he enlisted in the Dorsetshire Regiment, and was assigned to the 2nd Battalion. His mother, Jane, passed away in 1915, and it is unclear whether this loss proved to be the catalyst for her son’s enlistment.

Private Tewkesbury’s battalion served in the Middle East for the duration of the conflict.

During the past week we have had three of our local men who have seen active service home for a few days’ leave… Private William Tewkesbury… who has been on active service in Mesopotamia…

Western Chronicle: Friday 8th June 1917

William survived the war, and was awarded the Victory and British Medals for his service. He returned home, and, presumably, took up his previous employment once he was demobbed in February 1919.

The next available record for William is that of his passing, and even this is sketchy. He passed away on 21st March 1920 in Sherborne, Dorset, though the cause is unknown. He was 39 years of age.

William Gilbert Tewkesbury’s body was brought back to Ilchester for burial. He was laid to rest in the village’s parish cemetery. While not recorded, it is likely that this is where Jane had been buried five years earlier, and where William Sr would be laid to rest just months later, when he too passed away.

Commonwealth War Graves, Devon, Dorset, Great War, history, illness, Lieutenant, London, Middlesex, photography, Royal Garrison Artillery, Royal Navy, story, Tank Corps, war

Lieutenant Hugh Punchard

Leave a comment
Lieutenant Hugh Punchard

Hugh Punchard was born in February 1895, the oldest of three children to William and Jane Punchard. William was a civil engineer from London, and Hugh was born in Surbiton.

The 1901 census recorded the family living in the 14-room house, Pope’s Garden, in Twickenham. Along with the family, there were four members of staff – a governess, housemaid, cook and a nurse. By the time of the next census, sixteen-year-old Hugh was away at school, boarding with more than 400 others at Haileybury College in Hertfordshire.

War was coming to Europe by this point, and Hugh was keen to play his part. He enlisted in the Royal Navy on 20th October 1914 and, while he was only there for a short period, his records shed some light onto the man he had become. He enlisted as a mechanic, and was noted as being 6ft 4ins (1.93m) tall, with dark brown hair, grey eyes and a fair complexion.

Hugh remained in the Royal Navy for only a month, and, while full details of his service are no longer available, it would seem that it was at this point that he transferred to the Royal Garrison Artillery. He appears to have performed his duties well, and achieved the rank of Lieutenant. He also made another transfer, when he was attached to the Tank Corps.

Lieutenant Punchard was based in Dorset by the last year of the war, and it was while he was serving there that he became unwell. He contracted pneumonia, and was admitted to Wareham Military Hospital. Sadly, the condition was to take his life, and he passed away on 31st October 1918, at the age of just 23 years old.

Hugh Punchard’s paternal grandparents lived in Devon, and, as William had passed away two years earlier, the decision was to lay him to rest in Totnes Cemetery.

Hugh’s will left his estate to his mother, Jane. When he passed, she became the beneficiary of his effects, totally some £3,600 7s 6d (around £250,000 in today’s money).

Jane stayed living in Twickenham: when she passed away on 29th July 1937, she was brought to Devon for burial, and was laid to rest with her son.

A number of documents relating to Hugh give his name as R Hugh Punchard. Sadly, I have not been able to unearth details of what his official first name might have been.

Commonwealth War Graves, Dorset, Gloucestershire, Great War, Gunner, history, illness, photography, Royal Garrison Artillery, story, war

Gunner Henry Brewer

Leave a comment
Gunner Henry Brewer

Henry William Brewer was born the spring of 1869 in Bitton, Gloucestershire. His is a common name for the area, and so it is not easy to unpick details of his early life.

On 5th May 1895, Henry married Ann Williams, a carter’s daughter from Keynsham, Somerset. The couple wed in St Thomas’ Church in Widcome, near Bath, and their marriage certificate gives Henry’s trade as a labourer, and his father as Louis Brewer.

The young couple up home in Kingswood, near Bristol, and went on to have three children, Henry, Lucy and Ethel. The 1901 census recorded Henry’s trade as a coal miner and hewer, but noted that he was also a Gunner in the Royal Artillery.

Sadly, Henry’s military records are lost to time, but if he was employed in the army, this would account for the lack of documents relating to his early life. It may be that he had completed his initial term of service by the time he and Ann married, or that he was a volunteer with the Royal Artillery at the time of the census.

Whatever his connection with the army, when war broke out he was called into service. He joined the 30th Company of the Royal Garrison Artillery, and was based in Weymouth, Dorset, as part of Britain’s South Coast defences.

Without military documents, it’s challenging to identify Gunner Brewer’s trail during the war. Sadly, the next documents relate to his passing. He was admitted to a military hospital in Weymouth, suffering from the kidney condition nephritis. This was ultimately to kill him, and he passed away on 28th February 1917, at the age of 48 years old.

Henty William Brewer’s body was brought back to Gloucestershire for burial. He was laid to rest in the graveyard of St Mary’s Church in Bitton.

Berkshire, Commonwealth War Graves, Dorset, Great War, Hampshire, history, illness, Lieutenant, Midshipman, photography, Royal Navy, Second Lieutenant, Somerset, story, war

Lieutenant Alexander Spurway

Leave a comment
Lieutenant Alexander Spurway

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.

accident, Chaplain, Commonwealth War Graves, Devon, Dorset, Great War, history, London, photography, Royal Army Chaplain's Department, Somerset, story, war

Reverend George Sweet

Leave a comment
Reverend George Sweet

George Charles Walrond Sweet was born on 4th December 1889, the oldest of three children to Reverend Charles Sweet and his wife Maud. A Church of England vicar, Charles moved around with his work, and, when George was born, he was based in Winterborne Kingston in Devon.

George was sent away to school, and, by the time of the 1901 census, Charles and the family had moved to Milton Lilbourne in Wiltshire, to tend the local flock.

After school, George studied at Oxford, then followed in his father’s footsteps by taking holy orders, and was soon appointed rector of Symondsbury, Dorset.

When war broke out, his calling was to serve in the Royal Army Chaplain’s Department. Details of his time during the conflict are unclear, although by the spring of 1919, he was attached to the headquarters of the Army of the Rhine.

It was here that he met Phyllis Squire Hickson, who was serving as a Nurse in the Queen Mary’s Auxiliary Army Corps. The couple fell in love and, in June 1919 they returned to England to marry. The wedding occurred on 6th August 1919, and the newlyweds set off on honeymoon the following day.

On his honeymoon tour, the Revd. George C Walrond Sweet… was drowned on Thursday evening in the Cherwell at Oxford, in the presence of his wife.

Mr and Mrs Sweet engaged a punt at Tims’s boathouse and went for a trip on the river. On returning about seven o’clock, when within 300 yards of the boathouse, the punt pole was embedded in the mud and, in attempting to dislodge it the pole broke.

Mr Sweet fell on the side of the boat and then over-balanced into the river. His wife tried to reach him, but without success, and then jumped into a second punt and from that into another boat, but failed to reach him, and he disappeared. The body was not recovered until a quarter of an hour had elapsed, and life was then extinct.

Mr Sweet, who was an MA of Keble College, was only married on Wednesday at St James’s Church, West Hampstead…

[Phyllis’ father] Mr William Hickson… said his daughter became engaged to Mr Sweet in France. He did not meet him until last Tuesday. They came to England to be married. Mr Sweet met with a bicycle accident some years ago and [he] understood from his daughter that her husband was unable to swim or take any active exercise, but while he had been in France his health had much improved.

It was stated [at the inquest] that Mr and Mrs Sweet had been married only one day when the accident occurred and Dr Brooks, a university coroner, said that the tragedy was one of the saddest that had ever come under his notice.

Taunton Courier and Western Advertiser: Wednesday 13th August 1919

The inquest confirmed that the punt pole had broken about 2.5ft (0.76m) from the top. When George was dragged from the river, artificial respiration was carried out for around 50 minutes, but proved unsuccessful. The inquest returned a verdict of accidental death. George was just 29 years of age.

Reverend George Charles Walrond Sweet’s body was brought to Somerset for burial. He was laid to rest in the graveyard of Holy Cross Church in Sampford Arundel, more than likely because he or his father had been vicars there.

This was the second tragedy to befall the Sweet family. George’s younger brother, Leonard, had been schooled in Sherborne, then at the Military College in Sandhurst. He joined the 1st Battalion of the Hampshire Regiment as Second Lieutenant on 5th February 1913, and was promoted to full Lieutenant in September 1914, and Captain in October 1915.

Captain Sweet was then attached to the 29th Squadron of the Royal Flying Corps, and gained his wings at the British Flying School in Le Crotoy, France, in August 1915. On 22nd June 1916, he was on patrol duty over the British lines, when he was involved in a skirmish, and his plane crashed, killing him instantly. He was just 23 years of age.

Captain Leonard Sweet was laid to rest at the Lijssenthoek Military Cemetery in Poperinge, near Ypres.

Captain Leonard Sweet
(from findagrave.com)

Phyllis Sweet never remarried. By the time of the 1939 England and Wales Register, she was living in Bridport, Dorset, and working as a political organiser and speaker. She passed away in August 1944 in Cannock, Staffordshire, at the age of 63 years old.

Commonwealth War Graves, Devonshire Regiment, Dorset, Great War, history, photography, Private, Somerset, story, unknown, war, Wiltshire

Private Bernard Lane

Leave a comment
Private Bernard Lane

Bernard Fred Lane was born in Wellington, Somerset, in the spring of 1880, and was the oldest of nine children to Frederick and Agnes Lane. Frederick was a house painter and, after a stint as a butcher, his son followed the same work. By the time of the 1901 census he was one of four boarders with the Hapgood family, living in Bournemouth, Dorset.

On 5th October 1901, Bernard married Annie Louisa Joyner. The couple wed in St Paul’s Church in Poole, but soon settled back in Wellington, and went on to have four children: Agnes, James, Mildred and Winifred.

War came to Europe in 1914, and Bernard wanted to play his part. Full details of his military service are not available, but it is clear that he had enlisted in the Devonshire Regiment by March 1918. At some point during the conflict Private Lane was assigned to the Labour Corps, and attached to the 312th Company.

Bernard was serving on Salisbury Plain by the autumn of 1918, and fell ill, although it is not clear what befell him. Admitted to the Fargo Military Hospital at Larkhill, Wiltshire, he passed away on 15th October 1918. He was 38 years of age.

Bernard Fred Lane was brought back to Somerset for burial. He was laid to rest in Wellington Cemetery, the resting place for several other members of his family.

Private Bernard Lane
(from findagrave.com)
Commonwealth War Graves, Dorset, Dorsetshire Regiment, Great War, history, photography, Private, story, unknown, war

Private Albert Stockley

1 Comment
Private Albert Stockley

Albert William Stockley was born in the spring of 1897, the youngest of twelve children to Frank and Mary Ann Stockley. Frank was a clay cutter from Dorset, and he and his wife raised their family in the picturesque village of Corfe Castle.

Sadly, much of Albert’s life is lost to time. He would have been 17 years old when war broke out, so it seems likely that he would not have been in the first wave of men to enlist.

Albert joined the Dorsetshire Regiment and, as a Private, was assigned to the 1st/4th Battalion. His troop was based in India for the first part of the war, before moving to Mesopotamia in 1916. There is nothing to confirm, however, whether Private Stockley served abroad, or if he remained as part of a territorial force.

Private Stockley was demobbed on 22nd May 1919, and awarded the Victory and British Medals for his service. He returned to Dorset, but is it at this point that his trail goes cold.

All that is evident is that Albert William Stockley passed away on 1st April 1920, ages just 23 years old. was laid to rest in the Old Church Cemetery in his home town of Corfe Castle.

Albert shares his grave with his older sibling, George Stockley, who died in June 1916. The brothers are commemorated on the same headstone.

Commonwealth War Graves, Dorset, Driver, Great War, history, photography, Royal Field Artillery, story, unknown, war

Driver George Stockley

1 Comment
Driver George Stockley

George Stockley was born in December 1888, one of twelve children to Frank and Mary Ann Stockley. Frank was a clay cutter from Dorset, and he and his wife raised their family in the picturesque village of Corfe Castle.

When he left school, George found work as a house painter but it seemed this was not to be a career. In March 1913, he married Lillian May Stockley, who had been born in Frome, Somerset, but who was working as a barmaid in nearby Weymouth. Later that year, the couple had a daughter, Georgina, and, by the time he enlisted two years later, George was working as a barman, and the young family were living in Bournemouth.

George had joined up on 10th February 1915, and was assigned to the 3rd/6th Hampshire Battery of the Royal Field Artillery. His service records show that he was 5ft 4ins (1.63m) tall, but they also confirm that, when he had his medical examination on 30th May, he was deemed as medically unfit for military service.

Sadly, there is no further information to confirm why Driver Stockley’s military career was cut so short. His trail goes for a year, until, on 20th June 1916, he passed away, aged just 27 years old. The cause of his passing is also lost to time

George Stockley was laid to rest in the Old Church Cemetery in his home town of Corfe Castle.

George shares his grave with his youngest sibling, Albert William Stockley, who died in April 1920. The brothers are commemorated on the same headstone.