Albert Victor Bond was born in 1887, the only child of John and Sarah Bond. John was an engine driver, with a steam roller, and the family lived in the Somerset village of Butleigh.
Albert started working for the local baker and, by the time of the 1911 census, when his parents were celebrating their 25th Wedding Anniversary, this is the job he was doing.
He enlisted in March 1915, joining the Royal Army Service Corps. While his full service record is not available, Private Bond’s service was relatively short lived. He was discharged as medically unfit in February 1916, having served for just 332 days.
He was discharged with pneumonia, and this seems not to have cleared up and he was eventually admitted to the military hospital in Wool, Dorset. Albert passed away from the disease on 4th November 1918, just a week before the Armistice. He was 30 years old.
Albert Bond lies at rest in the graveyard of St Leonard’s Church in his home village of Butleigh.
William Newman was born in Dorset in 1880, the oldest of six children to George and Margaret Newman. George worked as an agricultural labourer and a carter, and, after leaving school, William followed suit.
William’s life has been a challenge to piece together; however, I have managed to sketch together some information from a number of sources.
By the 1911 census, he was living with his now widowed father and three of his siblings. Listed as single, he was working as a labourer.
When William joined up, he enlisted in the Devonshire Regiment, before being transferred over to the Labour Corps. He was assigned to 652 Agriculture Company, serving on the home front, presumably somewhere close to home.
There are no details of Private Newman’s death – contemporary newspapers do not highlight anything out of the ordinary or sudden about his passing. I can only assume, therefore, that he passed through natural causes, perhaps influenza or pneumonia.
He died on 29th October 1918, in the village of Martock, Somerset. He was 37 years old.
It appears that William did not marry – his war pension was allocated to his sisters Edith, Alice and Louisa and no spouse is mentioned (nor is his father).
William Newman lies at rest in the quiet churchyard of St Margaret’s in the Somerset village of Tintinhull.
Francis George Richards (or Frank) was born in 1889, the oldest of five children to William and Rhoda Richards. William was an agricultural labourer and the family lived in his home village of Long Sutton in Somerset.
Frank followed his father into agriculture, and, by the 1911 census, was working as a carter.
And that is where the trail of Private Richards goes cold.
What records do exist confirm that he enlisted in the Wiltshire Regiment, serving at its depot in Devizes. This suggests he was part of the 7th (Service) Battalion, raised through the Kitchener Scheme.
The battalion were shipped to France in September 1915, before being moved on to the Balkans, where they fought in the Battle of Horseshoe Hill and the Battles of Dorian. As there are no records of Private Richards’ service, it is not possible to confirm how involved in the fighting in Europe he was, or whether he remained on the Home Front.
Frank’s death also remains a mystery. All that can be said for sure is that he died in hospital on 11th April 1917, in a hospital in England. He was 27 years old. He does not appear to have married, and his pension was assigned to his father.
Frank George Richards lies at rest in the quiet graveyard of Holy Trinity Church in his home village of Long Sutton.
Frank Antell was born in 1880, one of seven children – six sons – to Thomas and Harriett Antell. Thomas was a groom, and Harriett a dressmaker and the family lived in the village of Martock in Somerset.
After Thomas died in 1893, Frank left school and became a carpenter. By the time of the 1901 census, he was living with his mother and youngest brother. Income seems to have been short – there were three other people boarding and lodging with the family.
In August 1904, Frank married Augusta Ring, and together they had five children – Lily, Ada, Leslie, Ronald and Freda.
Frank enlisted in the 13th (Works) Battalion of the Devonshire Regiment; this had been formed in the summer of 1916, so it can only be assumed that he was called up at the start. The battalion was based in Plymouth, so it is likely that Private Antell did not see fighting on the Western Front.
Private Frank Antell’s death is also a bit of a mystery. All that there is to confirm what happened is one stark sentence on his pension ledger:
Wounds self-inflicted during temporary insanity whilst on active service.
This one statement covers a multitude of sins, but does nothing to explain the mystery of what happened. There is no coverage of the incident or funeral in contemporary newspapers, so I have been unable to find any further explanation.
Frank Antell was a man with a young family. His regiment was based in England and was to be so for the duration of the war. One cannot imagine what thoughts were going through his head at the time he took his own life. That the 37 year old felt this was his only option is tragic.
Frank Antell lies at rest in the graveyard of All Saints’ Church in his home village of Martock in Somerset.
Frank’s widow Augusta went on to marry again in 1919, to a Joseph Maunder. She died in 1951 at the age of 73 years old.
Percy Norris was born in 1894, the youngest of eleven children to William and Julia Norris. William was the caretaker for the water works in Somerton, Somerset, and this is where the family of eleven lived.
By the time of the 1911 census, Percy’s older brother Henry had joined his father at the water works. Julia had passed away five years before, and Percy and three of his siblings continued to live with William. At this point Percy was working as a gardener.
Private Norris’ full military records are not readily available, but it is evident that he enlisted in the 7th Battalion of the Wiltshire Regiment. This was a service troop, formed in 1914, who saw service in France and the Balkans.
It seems that it was during one of the skirmishes that Private Norris was injured. While there is no confirmation of exactly when or where this happened, it is likely to have been at some point in the spring of 1918. Percy was shipped back the England for treatment, and admitted to the Red Cross Hospital in Bridgwater, Somerset.
Sadly, Private Norris did not recover from his injuries. He passed away on 5th April 1918, aged 24 years old.
Percy lies at rest in the cemetery of Somerton, his home town.
Percy’s older brother Henry Norris also died in the Great War. Joining the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserves, Able Seaman Norris was also wounded on active duty, dying of his injuries in January 1918, aged 32. He is buried at the St Sever Cemetery in Rouen, France.
Robert Edward Nichols Hunt was born in Somerton, Somerset in 1894. One of five children to Charles and Rose Hunt, his father was a bootmaker.
By the 1911 census, however, things had taken a different turn; Charles and two of his sons were working for a brewer, Rose was working as a shop assistance in Boots, and the youngest of the family, Kate, was apprenticed to a dressmaker.
It was against this backdrop that war came, and, within a year, Robert had enlisted in the Royal Army Medical Corps. His sign-up documents confirm that he was short sighted, although this was corrected with glasses and he was deemed fit for active service.
Sent to the Western Front in October 1915, Private Hunt definitely found himself in the thick of the action.
In August 1916, he was supporting the fighting at High Wood on the Somme, when a gas shell exploded near him. He fell and, when he woke, he remembered little of what happened. Robert had inhaled a lot of gas, however, and was left coughing with difficulty breathing. He was transferred back to England by train and ship to recover, arriving back on the 2nd September.
There is no record of Robert having gone back to the front. The impact of the gas appears to have been severe and long-lasting. At the end of October 1918, he was admitted to the Becket House Auxiliary Hospital in St Albans with influenza and bronchial pneumonia. Sadly, this was to be a battle he would not recover from, and he passed away on 4th November 1918. He was 24 years old.
Robert Edward Nichols Hunt lies at rest in the cemetery of his home town, Somerton.
What I have discovered while researching the Commonwealth War Graves, is that, despite the general themes I find, the people behind the names always have an individual story to tell. Sometimes that story raises an eyebrow, or produces a gasp.
Such was the story of Private Harry Pullen.
What raised the eyebrow? Two words, written on the Army Records of Soldiers’ Effects.
Accidentally Drowned.
Harry Pullen was born in Shirehampton, Gloucestershire in 1886. His father, Robert Edward Pullen, was a carpenter; he and his wife Hannah Presulga Cissy Pullen had three other children, Gwendoline, Herbert and John.
By the time of the 1901 census, Robert is boarding in a house in Bristol with his three sons; Hannah and Gwendoline are not listed (nor do they appear on any other census records I have been able to locate).
Harry is listed as a Telegraph Boy, as is his brother Herbert, but he seemed to have wanted to take up a trade; by 1910 he had moved up to London.
In March of that year, Harry married Harriet Critchell, a spinster fifteen years his senior. On their marriage records for Christ Church, St Pancras, Harry lists himself as a tradesman. The census a year later confirms this – head of the household, he is an Agent for the Provident Clothing Supply Company. (Founded in Bradford, West Yorkshire, Provident’s mission was to help working-class families provide for themselves through the use of vouchers. These were exchanged for goods in local shops, and paid for in affordable instalments.)
Harry enlisted at some point after 1916. His regiment, the 1st (Reserve) Garrison Battalion of the Suffolk Regiment, was not formed until March of that year, and, after starting in Buckinghamshire, it moved to Tilbury in Essex and Gravesend in Kent. The battalion was finally settled in Grain, North Kent in 1918, and it was here that he served.
Here the trail goes frustratingly cold…
Private Pullen’s enlistment and service records are not available, so research is limited to the Army Register of Soldier’s Effects and the Pension Ledgers.
All we have about his death are those two words – Accidental Drowning. There are no contemporary news reports of his passing, which you might expect given the circumstances, so the circumstances surrounding his death are elusive.
Private Pullen died on 10th July 1918. He was 31 years old.
His records confirm that Harriet was entitled to a weekly pension of 15s for the duration of the war and twelves months after.
Harry Pullen is buried in the graveyard of St James’ Church in Grain, Kent, close to where he was stationed.
Charles Cornell was born in July 1885, the youngest of six children to Philip and Martha Cornell, from Ashdon in Essex. Philip was an agricultural labourer, and Charles and his older brother Daniel followed their father into the trade.
Charles was keen to further himself, however, and enlisted in the army. The 1911 census records him as a Private soldier at the Salamanca Barracks in Aldershot.
Private Cornell married Elizabeth Fanny Hoare in Strood, Kent, in October 1913. Beyond this there is little information on either Charles or Elizabeth.
Charles was assigned to the 3rd Battalion of the East Yorkshire Regiment and was promoted to Corporal. This reserve battalion was initially based in the town of Beverley, before moving to Hull and then nearby Withernsea. It seems unlikely, therefore, that Corporal Cornell saw active service on the Western Front.
His passing seems to have been sudden; his pension record shows that he had been admitted to the Military Hospital at Wharncliffe with nephritis (inflamed kidneys). He passed away on 27th January 1918, aged 32 years old.
Corporal Charles Cornell is buried in the graveyard of St Helen’s Church in Cliffe, Kent, the village his widow’s family were from. He is also commemorated in his own family’s village of Ashdon in Essex (where the memorial states he had attained the rank of Sergeant).
The majority of the the Commonwealth War Graves Commission headstones in the UK are made from Portland stone, although, in face, over 50 different natural stones have been used.
Corporal Cornell’s headstone is one of two in St Helen’s Churchyard that have been fashioned from dark grey slate.
Ernest George Austin was born in early 1888, one of four children – all boys – to Edward Austin and his wife Harriett. The Austin family lived in the village of Cliffe, in the North Kent countryside, where Edward was a carpenter.
Ernest’s older brother Edward worked as a telegram messenger when he left school, and Ernest followed suit, becoming a postman by the time of the 1911 census. The four boys all lived with their now-widowed mother, their father having died seven years earlier.
Duty soon called, however, and Ernest enlisted in July 1916, joining the Army Service Corps. After training in England, he was shipped overseas that autumn.
Private Austin was discharged from the army just over a year later, and the medical report from that time sheds a lot more light onto this young man’s life:
Father [Edward] died of “consumption”.
Has had a chronic cough since a boy. Developed tubercle of lung in 1907. Went to Chile same year, where all symptoms disappeared. Put on weight and lost his cough completely. Returned to England and joined Army July 1916.
Has been in Mesopotamia three months. Cough has returned. Lost weight. Night sweats. Admitted to [military hospital] with sore throat; TB found present.
Admitted to this hospital 14th June 1917 with above symptoms. High temperature, evidence of infection.
In my opinion, the relighting of a latent infection is entirely attributable to active service in Mesopotamia.
Private Ernest Austin’s medical board record, 23rd Jun 1917
Ernest had been hospitalised in the Cumballa War Hospital, Bombay. He was sent home and ultimately discharged from active service on 8th October 1917.
Demobbed, Ernest married Antoinette Gurton at the start of 1918. The marriage was to be short-lived, however, as Ernest appears to have finally succumbed to his illness less than a year later.
Private Ernest Austin passed away on 14th November 1918. He was 31 years old. He lies at rest in the graveyard of St Helen’s Church in his home village of Cliffe, Kent.
Edward Carver is one of those soldiers whose details have been lost in the mists of time.
From the information I have been able to gather, Edward was born in Kent in 1887, although I have been unable to track down his parents or any firm census records.
Edward married Violet Ethel Caroline Belsey in April 1918 and enlisted in the Royal West Kent (Queen’s Own) Regiment, although he later transferred to the Labour Corps. I have nothing to confirm, however, in which order these three events happened.
The Army Register of Soldier’s Effects records that Private Carver died at home – Chestnut Street in Sittingbourne – and confirms that this was on 20th November 1918, around six months after he and Violet married.
Nothing in contemporary media suggests that his passing was unusual, so it can only be assumed that something like pneumonia or influenza was the cause of his death. (It might also had had something to do with his transfer of regiments, although, again, I have nothing to confirm that this might be the case.)
Edward Carver lies at rest in the churchyard of St Mary the Virgin in Newington, Kent. He was 31 years old.
As an aside, Edward’s widow, Violet, married an Arthur Beaumont in December 1919, and the couple went on to have two children.
Death and Service 