Sidney John Warren was born in January 1890, one of eleven children to shipwright George Warren and his wife Elizabeth. The family lived in Salmon Parade, on the riverside in Bridgwater, where George would have plied his trade. By the time of the 1911 census, Sidney had found work as a grocer’s assistant, and was living with his parents and the youngest of his brothers, Edward.
While exact details of Private Warren’s military career are not available, documents confirm that he enlisted in the Somerset Light Infantry. Assigned to the 4th Battalion, he was based in India and Mesopotamia during the conflict. No details are available of his time there, but at some point, he transferred to the Labour Corps back in Somerset.
And there Sidney’s trail goes cold. He survived the war, but passed away on 27th November 1918, suffering from pneumonia. He was just 28 years old.
Sidney John Warren lies at rest in the family grave at St John’s Cemetery in his home town of Bridgwater in Somerset.
Charles Lang Dibble was born in 1890, one of nine children to Evan and Eliza Dibble from Bridgwater in Somerset. Evan was a labourer in a brickyard, and clay must have been run through the family’s veins, as Charles found employment as a kiln hand in a local tile maker when he left school.
By the 1911 census, Charles was boarding with William Rainey and his family in Bridgwater; whether there was a connection before he moved in or not, I don’t know, but the following year he married one of William’s daughters, Constance. The young couple wed on Christmas Day 1912 and went on to have one child, Charles, who was born in 1915.
Full details of Charles’ military service are not available. However, when he enlisted, he initially joined the Somerset Light Infantry, before transferring to the Devonshire Regiment and finally the Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry. During his service, he was awarded the Victory and British Medals, but there is little further information about Private Dibble.
Charles survived the war, but his pension records confirm that he passed away on 7th May 1921; the cause of death was noted as exhaustion and sarcoma of the rectum. He was 31 years old.
Charles Lang Dibble lies at rest in St John’s Cemetery in his home town of Bridgwater.
Oliver Job Chubb was born on 3rd December 1884 in the village of Smallbridge in Devon. He was one of six children to Job Chubb, who was an agricultural labourer, and his wife Louisa. Oliver did not seem to be one for settling down; after his parents had moved the family to Ilminster in Somerset when he was just a child, by 1901 he was living in Lyme Regis, working as a carter in a market garden.
In 1902, at the age of 17, Oliver enlisted in the Somerset Light Infantry. Eighteen months later he transferred to the Royal Navy, serving as a Stoker on a number of ships during what would become twelve years’ service, including the Royal Oak, Skirmisher and Newcastle.
In 1906 he married Rosina Keirle, a brickmaker’s daughter from Somerset. The wedding was in Bridgwater, and the couple went on to have three children, Olive, Albert and Cecil.
There is a sense that Oliver either had perpetually itchy feet, or that he was always running from something. The 1911 census found him aboard HMS Suffolk in the Mediterranean, where he listed himself as single. By the end of his naval service in November 1915, however, Stoker Chubb disembarked in the port of Victoria, British Colombia, and immediately signed up for military service with the Canadian Expeditionary Force.
Again, however, indecision seems to have set in. He listed his marital status as ‘single’ and confirmed his next of kin as his sister Elsie, but on his military will, he left everything to Rosina.
Private Chubb was assigned to the 29th Battalion of the Canadian Infantry; they served on the Western Front from early in 1915 through to the end of the war. He was involved in the fighting at Ypres, and, in September 1916, was treated in England for an inguinal hernia. After three months’ recover, he returned to the front.
While Private Chubb seems to have had a good overall manner, there were blips in his character. In May 1917, he was sentenced to three days’ field punishment for being absent without leave for 21hrs. In March 1918, he was sentenced to another five days’ field punishment for going AWOL for 48 hours. On 11th April 1918, Private Chubb received 14 days’ field punishment for drunkenness on duty.
In December of that year, Oliver was invalided back to England for medical treatment; he was admitted to the Fort Pitt Military Hospital in Chatham with lymphatic leukaemia. Sadly, Private Chubb passed away shortly after being admitted, dying on 17th December 1918. He was 34 years old.
Oliver Job Chubb lies at rest in St John’s Cemetery in Bridgwater, where his family still lived.
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.
Samuel Roberts was born in April 1875, one of seven children to William and Harriet Roberts from Bridgwater in Somerset. William worked as a labourer in a timber yard, though sadly he died young, when Samuel was only a child.
In the spring of 1899, Samuel married Rosina (or Rose) James, and the couple went on to have six children. Samuel was supporting his family working as a wicker chair maker, a roaring trade in a part of the county where reed beds were in plentiful supply.
Samuel’s war grave suggests that he enlisted in the Somerset Light Infantry, and that this must have been early in the First World War, given that he passed away in October 1914. His pension records paint a slightly muddier picture, however. They give the cause of Private Roberts’ death as Hodgkin’s disease and mania, but suggest that:
As is has not been possible to establish that Private S Roberts actually joined for service or was paid as a soldier during the war, Mrs Roberts’ claim to [a] pension cannot be admitted.
WW1 Pension Ledger: Private Samuel Roberts
Whether Samuel ever enlisted, or whether he only told Rose that he had, or whether, through his mania, he believed that he had, will likely never be uncovered. Either way, what can be established is that he passed away on 19th October 1914, at the age of 39 years old.
He lies at rest in the St John’s Cemetery in his home town of Bridgwater.
Occasionally I have found that some people are destined to remain hidden. No matter how much research you try and do, details stay lost, and the name on a gravestone will remain just that.
Private Fred Hobbs is one of those people.
He was born in around 1891; he enlisted in the 1st/5th Battalion of the Somerset Light Infantry. Private Hobbs’ service records are not available, but he was awarded the Victory and British Medals for his actions.
His pension record gives Mrs Ellen Louisa Hobbs as his next of kin; there is no confirmation of whether this was his mother or his wife – research has uncovered nothing to identify either.
Private Hobbs does not appear in the contemporary media – this would seem to suggest nothing out of the ordinary about his passing.
All we know for certain is that Fred Hobbs passed away on 12th June 1920, aged 29 years old. He lies at rest in St John’s Cemetery in Bridgwater, Somerset.
Walter Henry Taylor is one of those people whose details are difficult to track down. From his pension card, he is recorded as having been married to a woman called Lilla Rhoda, and that they had a daughter, Joan Valeria, who was born in April 1916.
Walter’s war grave confirms that he was a Private in the Essex Regiment; his pension records also support this, showing that he was assigned to the 6th Battalion, then the 10th Battalion. The two troops were positioned in different locations during the conflict – the 6th fought the Turkish, including involvement at Gallipoli, while the 10th was based on the Western Front.
An article in the local newspaper – the Taunton Courier and Western Advertiser – reported his death, confirming that he passed at the War Hospital in Preston, Northampton. He had been in service for more than a year, having previously been employed by Redwood & Sons in Taunton. The newspaper went on to report that Private Taylor had been suffering from ill health and had been hospitalised in both France and England.
The name is a fairly common one, and my usual resource, Ancestry, wasn’t bringing up anything concrete around him. There are no definitive birth or marriage records and the censuses I have been able to locate do not convince me that they relate to the name on the gravestone.
There is a Walter Harry Taylor, who was born in Bridgwater in 1883, one of ten children to Henry John Taylor and his wife Emma; Henry was a sailmaker, while Walter went into boot making.
The 1911 census picks up this Walter in St Pancras, London, where he was working as a boot trade shop assistant, while boarding with a dressmaker called Minnie Adelaide Lloyd.
While these seem likely candidates for Walter, there is nothing to definitively connect the documents to the man being researched. What potentially sways it, is that Redwood & Sons (Walter’s pre-service employer) were a boot and shoe dealer.
Sadly, the only other definitive documentation of Walter’s life is that he passed away on 14th July 1918, from a kidney sarcoma. He was 35 years old.
Walter Henry (Harry) Taylor lies at rest in the St John’s Cemetery in his presumed home town of Bridgwater, Somerset.
Frederick Hobbs was born in December 1886, the fourth of ten children to William and Martha Hobbs, from Bridgwater in Somerset. William was a mason, and all of his children seemed to be good with their hands. Frederick went on to become a plumber’s apprentice, while his siblings worked as a mason, a dressmaker and a carpenter.
The 1911 census found him living in Polden Street, Bridgwater with his mother and youngest sibling, Florrie. William, however, was living round the corner in Bath Road, with three of his other children, Clara, Tom and George. Both of Frederick’s parents are listed as married, which adds to the confusion of them being in separate houses.
Frederick enlisted with weeks of was being declared; he joined the 10th (Service) Battalion of the Devonshire Regiment and, after a year on home soil, his troop was shipped to France. This wasn’t the end of the Private Hobbs’ journey, however as, within a couple of months, he journeyed on as part of the Mediterranean Expeditionary Force, finally arriving in Salonica, Greece, in November 1915.
Private Hobbs has only been serving for a month when he was admitted to the Hospital Ship Asturias in Alexandria, with lacerations to his cheeks and eyelids. The initial report seemed to suggest the wounds were as a result of gunshot, although a more detailed report later confirmed that the injuries were caused by barbed wire.
While in hospital, Frederick’s urine was found to include a high level of sugar. He also confirmed having lost a lot of weight in recent months, but could not confirm when this had begun. He was diagnosed with diabetes, and was evacuated back to England for treatment for both his injuries and his illness.
The damage to his left eye healed, but he was left with significant ptosis, or drooping of the eyelid. When it came to his diabetes, specialists back in England determined that, while it could not be put down to Private Hobbs’ service, it had definitely been aggravated by it. He was deemed no longer fit for military service and furloughed in June 1916, with a follow-up report confirming this three months later.
Sadly, whether Frederick’s life returned to normal is not recorded. It seems likely, however, that the diabetes got the better of him, and he passed away on 25th November 1916, aged just 29 years old.
Frederick Hobbs lies at rest in St John’s Cemetery in his home town of Bridgwater, Somerset.
Frederick’s younger brother Herbert Hobbs also fought in the Great War. He enrolled in the Royal Marines Light Infantry and fought on the Western Front. Caught up in the Battle of Gavrelle Windmill, he was one of 335 Royal Marines to be killed in that skirmish. He lies buried at the Arras Memorial in Northern France.
Wilfred Allen Gillson was born in 1888, the fourth of nine children – and one of eight boys – to George and Emma Gillson. George was a coachbuilder from Cornwall; Emma, whose maiden name was Allen, came from Derbyshire. The family were living in Torquay by the time Wilfred was born.
In 1895, George had moved the family to Bridgwater in Somerset, presumably as railway works had dried up in the coastal Devon town. By this time his oldest son, also called George, was working as a compositor, keying text for a printer. Wilfred was still at school, but his other two older siblings – William and Albert – were both working with their father, working on railway coaches.
Wilfred was also to follow in his father’s employment, and the 1911 census found him living in Bristol, boarding with the Cridland family, earning his keep a a carriage painter.
He joined up within weeks of war breaking out, enlisting in the Worcestershire Regiment on 20th September 1914. Private Gillson readily proved his worth, and was promoted to Lance Corporal after three months, and Corporal within a year of enlisting.
Corporal Gillson’s promotion coincided with his shipment abroad, and he served on the Western Front for eight months. Returning to England in March 1916, he subsequently transferred to the Devonshire Regiment, before being moved to the 4th Reserve Battalion in the spring of 1917.
Things were not right for Wilfred; he was reprimanded for neglecting his post on the night of the 26th May that year, before being medically discharged with neurasthenia in August.
The root of the matter is detailed in his discharge report; he was hospitalised at Neuve Chapelle in February 1916, suffering from shellshock, and it seems that he never really fully recovered.
Sadly, at this point Wilfred’s trail goes cold. He passed away on 10th November 1918, aged 30 years old.
Wilfred Allen Gillson lies at rest in St John’s Cemetery in Bridgwater, Somerset.
There are a couple of additional notes to Wilfred’s life.
During the war, Wilfred’s youngest brother, Thomas, fought with the Oxfordshire & Buckinghamshire Light Infantry. He was involved in the fighting in France, but died from wounds on 10th June 1918. He was just 18 years old, and is buried at Aire-sur-la-Lys, not far from Boulogne.
Given that Wilfred was one of eight brothers, all of whom would have been of fighting age during the war, it is lucky – although still a tragedy – that only he and Thomas died as a result of the conflict.
Sadly, Wilfred’s mother, Emma, passed away in the autumn of 1914, at 57 years of age. It might be a blessing, however, that she was not alive to see two of her sons suffer so.
Ernest James Wood was born in 1891, one of ten children to Alfred and Charlotte Wood. Alfred was a carpenter and machinist for a timber merchant, and, by the time of Ernest’s birth the family lived in Bridgwater, Somerset.
When hostilities broke out, Ernest was quick to enlist. He joined the Royal Army Service Corps in September 1914. Driver Wood was assigned to the Horse Transport Depot Company at Park Royal in London, and there is a note of him being injured on 29th July 1916. Sadly, little else of his military service remains.
In January 1916, Ernest married Hilda Williams. She was the same age as her new husband, and was the daughter of Thomas and Elizabeth, who were also from Bridgwater.
The trail of Driver Wood goes a little cold after that. He was demobbed om 6th January 1919 and on the release form declared that he was not medically unfit as a result of his military service.
Frustratingly, the trail goes totally cold at that point. All we know for certain is that Ernest died on 2nd March 1919, two months after leaving the army. There a no records confirming a cause of death but, as he does not appear in any contemporary newspapers, it is likely that the cause was not unusual; perhaps one of the respiratory conditions going around at the time, such as influenza or pneumonia. Whatever the cause, Ernest was just 28 years old when he died (his headstone is based on an incorrect date of birth).
Ernest James Wood lies at peace in the St John’s Cemetery in his home town of Bridgwater, in Somerset.
Death and Service 