Frederick Uriah Wilton was born in Yarlington, Somerset, in the spring of 1892. One of thirteen children, his parents were farm labourer Thomas Wilton and his wife Mary.
Frederick and his brothers followed their father into agricultural labouring, and, according to the 1911 census, the family were living and working at Shatwell Farm, on the outskirts of Yarlington itself.
When war broke out, Frederick was keen to play his part. Details of his military service are difficult to piece together, but what is clear is that he enlisted in the Bedfordshire Regiment.
During his time in the army, Frederick rose to the rank of Serjeant. He survived the war and, in 1919, he was placed on furlough while waiting to be demobbed. Sadly, it is likely that he fell ill during this time, and he passed away on 1st December 1919, at the age of 27.
Frederick Uriah Wilton was laid to rest in the graveyard of St Mary’s Church in Yarlington.
Serjeant Wilton’s headstone notes that he served in the Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire Regiment. The two regiments were amalgamated in 1919, and Frederick was recorded as having served in the newly formed regiment.
John Whiddett was born in Hammersmith, Middlesex, in 1892, and was one of thirteen children to Alfred and Mary Ann Whiddett. Alfred was a house painter while Mary Ann worked as a charwoman to bring in some additional money for the growing family.
John worked as a porter when he left school, but when war came to Europe, he stepped up to play his part. He enlisted in the Wiltshire Regiment in the summer of 1915, and was assigned to the 3rd (Reserve) Battalion.
While Private Whiddett served in France, he returned to Britain, and promoted to Corporal and then Lance Serjeant. His battalion eventually formed part of the Thames & Medway Garrison. Frederick found himself in Kent by the autumn of 1917 and served out the remainder of the war there.
At some point during the autumn of 1918, Lance Serjeant Whiddett fell ill. He was admitted to the Preston Hall Military Hospital in Aylesford, suffering from a combination of influenza and pneumonia. Sadly he was not to survive these lung conditions, and he succumbed to them on 22nd November 1918. He was just 26 years of age.
Finances may have restricted John’s family’s ability to bring his body back to Middlesex. Instead, he was laid to rest in the graveyard of St Peter and St Paul’s Church in Aylesford, Kent.
Albert Edward Rumbelow was born in 1879 in Wycombe Marsh, Buckinghamshire. One of eleven children, his parents were Suffolk-born paper maker Philip Rumbelow and his wife, Jane.
Little information is available about Albert’s early life, although by the time of the 1901 census, he is recorded as being a Private in the Rifle Brigade. The family had moved to the village of Little Chart in Kent by this point, where his father was still continuing in the manufacture of paper.
Private Rumbelow’s military service is evidenced in later documents. He served with the 1st Battalion from 1895 to 1907, was awarded the South Africa medals for 1901 and 1902: he was also granted the clasp for his involvement in the defence of Ladysmith. He appears to have been wounded at this point, and was invalided out of full military service and placed on reserve.
In 1904, Albert was back in England, and living in London. That year he married Ellen Sillis, a cordwainer’s daughter from Norfolk. The couple set up home in Fulham, and went on to have five children: Abert Jr, Iris, Florence, Doris and Hilda.
By the time of the 1911 census, Albert was working at the local Public Hall, as a labourer, hall attendant and cleaner. The family were living at 9 Crabtree Lane in Fulham, sharing the property with the Fitzgerald family.
War was closing in on Europe by this point, and, once again, Albert stepped up to plat his part. He enlisted within days of conflict being declared, and within weeks had been given the rank of Corporal. His service records note that he was 5ft 10ins (1.78m) tall, weighed 156lbs (70.8kg), had brown hair and blue eyes. He was also recorded as having a tattoo of crossed rifles and a crown on his right forearm, and scared on his left calf, knee and eyebrow.
By the spring of 1915, Albert had been promoted again, to the rank of Serjeant. He was sent to France on 19th May, having been assigned to the 7th (Service) Battalion. Serjeant Rumbelow was involved at the Somme and was awarded the Distinguished Conduct Medal “for conspicuous gallantry” on 3rd June 1916. “He exposed himself to machine-gun and rifle fire when going across the open to rescue a wounded man. Later he went under fire to fetch a stretcher.”
Serjeant Rumbelow appears to have been injured in the skirmish, and was invalided to the UK later that month. When he recovered he was posted again, this time to the 18th (London) Battalion of the Rifle Brigade.
The following February he made the transfer across to the Labour Corps, and by March 1917, Serjeant Rumbelow was back in France. In August he was promoted to Company Sergeant Major, but was invalided back to England with bronchitis in February 1918.
When he recovered Albert was assigned to the 364th Area Employment Coy. in Kent, and seems to have voluntarily taken a drop in rank – back to Serjeant – in doing so. His health was dogging him by this point and in the late summer of 1918, he was admitted to Preston Hall Military Hospital in Aylesford, suffering from VDH, or heart disease.
Sadly, the strain of his military service was to be his undoing. He passed away from the heart condition on 21st September 1918, at the age of 39 years of age.
Albert Edward Rumbelow was laid to rest in the graveyard of St Peter & St Paul’s Church in Aylesford, not far from the hospital where he had breathed his last.
Now widowed, Ellen was left with the unenviable task of raising five young children on her own. She married again, to Private William Lake, on 8th June 1919, and the family moved to Essex. She lived until the age of 79, and was laid to rest in Sutton Road Cemetery in Southend.
Thomas David William Denny was born on 26th December 1890 in Glasgow, Lanarkshire. There is little information on his early life, other than that his parents were Thomas and Annie Denny.
By the time of the 1911 census, Thomas Jr was serving as a Lance Corporal in the 2nd Battalion of the Gloucestershire Regiment, and was based at the Verdola Barracks in Malta.
When war broke out, the battalion was called back to mainland Europe. By 19th December 1914, Thomas found himself in France; two years later, he was in Salonika, Greece.
Thomas’ bravery was not in doubt. While serving in France, he received the Military Medal for conspicuous gallantry. This went hand in hand with a promotion to Sergeant. In 1917, he received a commission as Second Lieutenant and was moved to the regiment’s 3rd Battalion.
In the spring of 1918, Second Lieutenant Denny married Elsie, a woman from Bearsted, near Maidstone in Kent. Sadly, little else is known of her, and even a later newspaper report only referred to her as “a Bearsted lady” [East Kent Gazette: Saturday 15th March 1919].
By early 1919, Thomas was back in Britain. Whether he had been demobbed is unclear, but is seems more likely that he had returned home for medical treatment. On 6th March, he passed away in Maidstone. He was just 28 years of age.
Thomas David William Denny was laid to rest in the graveyard of Holy Cross Church in Bearsted close to where the now-widowed Elsie must have lived.
In the graveyard of St Augustine of Hippo Church in Penarth, Glamorgan, lies the Commonwealth War Grave for Serjeant Frank Carter. The headstone confirms that he had died on 31st August 1915 and that he was in the Loyal North Lancashire Regiment.
Little further information is available about him, apart from a few scattered details from a number of documents.
Frank’s burial record shows that he had been residing in The Fort, Penarth, a garrison constructed on the cliffs near the entrance to the harbour and Cardiff Bay. The record, written by George Turner, confirms that his burial was on 2nd September 1915, and that he was 51 years old when he passed.
Serjeant Carter’s record in the Army Register of Soldiers’ Effects confirm that he was in the 2nd/4th Battalion of his regiment, and that he must have enlisted at some point before February 1915. The document states that he died in the Western Hospital in Cardiff, and that his beneficiary was Miss M Smithson.
These few documents add up to very little, and do not provide enough information to concretely uncover anything else of Frank Carter’s life. His is a story that is destined to remain lost to time.
Frank shares his grave with another member of the Loyal North Lancashire Regiment, Private Edward Savage. Read his story here.
Alexander Johnstone de Vere was born on 10th August 1889 in Murree, India (now Pakistan). He was one of five children to Norfolk-born Alexander Johnstone (also known as John Ralph de Vere), and his wife Dorothea who had been born in Sangor, India. Alexander Sr was a Sergeant Major in the 12th Lancers, and the family returned to England not long after his son was born, settling first in Aldershot, then in Sandhurst.
Alexander’s youngest sibling, George, was born in Cairo, Egypt, so the family was on the move again. Sadly, Alexander Sr died in a nursing home in the city just two years later and, after returning to England, Dorothea passed away in a Holborn infirmary just two years later.
Documents for the de Vere children – Ellen, Alexander, Dorothea, William and George – are few and far between. The 1911 census places Dorothea boarding with a family in Kingston-upon-Thames, where she was employed as a dress maker. The same document records William as a Bandsman in the 1st Battalion of the Seaforth Highlanders, based at Chanpatia, in Northern India. George, meanwhile, was a schoolboy at the Duke of York’s Royal Military School on the outskirts of Dover. Of the two eldest siblings, however, there is no record.
In the autumn of 1912, Alexander married Emily Louise Collins. Born in Norfolk in 1884, she was working as a servant in a house in Surrey when she and Alexander met. The couple married in Faversham, Kent, and settle down there, their daughter, Dora, being born in the town in January 1915.
Given his family’s military background, it is not unsurprising that Alexander enlisted in the army almost as soon as war was declared. He may have already seen military service, as he enlisted in the 11th Hussars as a Lance Corporal. By 15th August 1914, Alexander was in France.
Lance Corporal de Vere was quickly caught up in the fighting. He saw action at Mons and Nery in 1914, and at Ypres the following year. By this point, he had been promoted to the rank of Sergeant Trumpeter, reflecting the musical connection he shared with his younger brother, William.
Alexander remained in France until January 1916, when he was invalided home. He was admitted to Dorchester County Hospital in Dorset, suffering from a cerebral abscess. Despite treatment, he succumbed to the condition, passing away on 17th March 1916, at the age of just 26 years old.
Alexander Johnstone de Vere was brought back to Kent for burial. He was laid to rest in Faversham Borough Cemetery.
George William Willis Bunting was born in Faversham, Kent, in the spring of 1889. The middle of eleven children to George and Mary Ann Bunting, he was also the oldest boy. George Sr was a labourer in the town’s munitions works, and his son followed suit, and was recorded as a cordite labourer there in the 1911 census.
When war came to Europe, George Jr was keen to play his part. He enlisted in the Royal Garrison Artillery, and was assigned to the 343rd Siege Battery. While full details of his service are not available, George’s life was laid out in a newspaper report following his death:
The death has occurred in quite pathetic circumstances of Battery Quartermaster Sergeant George William Bunting, 1st Kent Heavy Battery, Royal Garrison Artillery… who, after serving throughout the war, and coming unscathed through more than three years service in France, though he had several narrow escapes, had died of pneumonia at his home, just as he was anticipating return to civil life.
BQMS Bunting joined the Faversham Volunteer Corps (in which his father also formerly served) some seven years before the war, and when was broke out he was at the annual training with the Battery. War service immediately followed and in 1915 he went to France and, except for leave, had been out there ever since until a few weeks back when he returned for demobilisation. He was not feeling at all well when he arrived home, indeed he seems to have been so unwell that when he got indoors he remarked “I’m done.”
His words, unhappily, were only too prophetic, for he never left the house again, pneumonia developing and culminating in his death on February 27th, only nice days after his arrival.
Prior to the war the deceased, who was in his 30th year and unmarried, had been employed at the Cotton Powder Works ever since he left school. At the commencement of his war service, he was a Corporal, but his keenness at his work steadily gained him promotion and eventually he reached the rank of Battery Quarter Master Sergeant. Keen and conscientious himself, he expected the same in others, and it says much for his example and influence that he was held in the very highest regard by the men of his Battery, while to his officers he was a greatly valued NCO.
Faversham News: Saturday 15th March 1919
Quartermaster Serjeant George William Willis Bunting died at his Faversham home on 27th February 1919. He was just 29 years of age. He was laid to rest in the town’s Borough Cemetery.
Frank Harold Ely was born in November 1889, and was the oldest of four children. His parents were coal porter Frank Ely and his wife, Florence. They were both born in Kent, and raised their family in their home town of Faversham.
When Frank Jr left school, he found work as a bottler, but he had his eyes set on bigger adventures. In January 1908, at the age of 18, he enlisted in the 1st Battalion of the Rifle Brigade. His service records show that he was 5ft 5.5ins (1.66m) tall and weighed 109lbs (49.5kg). Rifleman Ely had brown hair, grey eyes and a fair complexion. He was also noted as having a scat on his right knee.
Rifleman Ely’s early service was wholly territorial, but not without incident: in 1909 he was treated for tonsillitis, two years later, he received treatment for syphilis.
He was also not one to toe the line. In August 1911, he was reprimanded for not appearing at the 6:30am parade. On 9th March 1912, he was severely reprimanded for ‘improper conduct in town, at about 11:35pm’. On 25th September 1913, he was reprimanded once again, this time for irregular conduct – using the officers’ latrines.
When war came to Europe, the Rifle Brigade were soon in the thick of it. On 26th August 1914, Frank was wounded in the hand during fighting at Ligny, France, and was then captured and held as a prisoner of war in Hamelin until the spring of 1918.
Moved to the Netherlands, Rifleman Ely was finally released after the Armistice was signed, and returned to England on 19th November 1918. He was demobbed the following March, but re-enlisted within weeks, was given the rank of Serjeant and was due to be shipped to India to continue his service.
However, while at an army camp in Aldershot, Frank contracted pneumonia. The struggles the previous few years had had on his health proved too much for him, and, on 26th August 1919 – five years to the day that he had been shot and captured – Serjeant Ely passed away. He was 40 years of age.
Frank Harold Ely was brought back to his home town for burial. He was laid to rest in Faversham Borough Cemetery.
Albert John Woolcott was born in the spring of 1877 and was one of three children to Thomas and Mary. Thomas was a labourer for a spirit company, and both he and his wife came from Chard in Somerset, which is where Albert and his siblings were born.
When he finished school, Albert was apprenticed to a local iron foundry and, by the time of the 1901 census, he was recorded as being a blacksmith in his own right.
By this point, Albert had met local woman Mary Pattimore: the couple married in the local church on Boxing Day 1901, and went on to have four children, all of them boys. Albert continued with his ironwork: the 1911 census records him as being the blacksmith at Chard’s Gifford Fox & Co.’s lace factory.
Albert played a keen role in the local volunteer movement for the Somerset Light Infantry. Through the town’s Constitutional Club he took an active role in its rifle range and was known to be a particularly skilled marksman. He also played in both the Volunteer Band and Chard’s Municipal Band.
When war came to Europe in August 1914, Albert was already billeted on Salisbury Plain as part of the volunteers, and was promoted to the rank of Serjeant. He was sent to India with his troop – the 5th Battalion of the Somerset Light Infantry – and remained there until April 1916.
By this point, Serjeant Woolcott was suffering from dorsal abscesses on his hands, and was evacuated back to England for treatment. Over the next nine months he was in and out of Netley Hospital on the outskirts of Southampton, where he had a number of operations to try and fix the problem.
Sadly, his treatment proved unsuccessful: Serjeant Woolcott passed away in the hospital on 19th January 1917, at the age of 39 years old.
Albert John Woolcott’s body was taken back to Somerset for burial. He was laid to rest in his home town’s cemetery.
Thomas Harris – known as Tom – was born on 13th October 1876, the only son of Edmund and Mary Harris. Edmund was an agricultural labourer from the Somerset village of Seavington St Mary, and this is where Tom was born and raised.
Mary had married Edmund in the spring of 1876, but had been married before; she was widowed when her previous husband, Alfred Vickery, died ten years before. They had had seven children of their own, half-siblings to Tom.
Edmund died in the Wells Lunatic Asylum when Tom was only six years old. When he left school, he found work as a farm labourer, but sought bigger and better things, even though he was now the only one of Mary’s children still living at home.
Tom enlisted in the Somerset Light Infantry in January 1893, and soon found himself overseas. During his sixteen years’ service, he spent seven years in India and six months fighting in the Second Boer War. Corporal Harris seems to have had a sickly time of it, and while in India, was admitted to hospital a number of times for fever, ague and diarrhoea, as well as a bout of conjunctivitis.
When Tom’s contract came to an end in 1909, he returned to Britain, setting up home in Newport, South Wales, where he found work as a sheet weigher at the local steel works.
Mary died of senile decay and cardiac failure in May 1910. She was 74 years old, and sadly passed away in the Chard Workhouse, in similar circumstances to her late husband.
In October 1913, Tom married Ada Long in Chard. She was the daughter of a shopkeeper, and the couple set up home in South Wales, where Tom was still working.
War, by now, was closing in on Europe, and Tom wanted to use his previous experience to serve his country once again. He enlisted on 20th August 1914 in Newport, joining the Devonshire Regiment as a Private, although he was quickly promoted first to Corporal and then to Serjeant. His service records show that he was 5ft 8ins (1.73m) tall, had blue eyes, brown hair and a tattoo of a Spanish girl on his right forearm.
After a year on the Home Front, Serjeant Harris was sent to Egypt in September 1915. On the way out, he contracted a severe cold, which left him deaf in his left ear. He was also suffering from varicose veins, which left him in pain in his right leg. He was treated for both conditions, and put on light duties for three months.
In November 1916, Serjeant Harris was supporting a food convoy when it came under attack. Buried in sand and wounded, he was laid up in a hole for two days and nights before help came. He was initially treated for shell shock in the camp hospital, but was eventually evacuated to Britain for treatment.
The incident had put too much of a strain on Tom, and he was medically discharged from the army in April 1917. While his medical report confirmed that the general paralysis he was suffering from was a result of the attack, it also noted on six separate occasions that he had previously suffered from syphilis, suggesting this may also have been a contributing factor to his mental state.
Tom was discharged initially to an asylum in South Wales, before returning home to Ada. The couple were soon expecting a child, and a boy, Sidney, was born in February 1918. By that summer, however, Tom’s condition had worsened enough for him to be admitted back to the Whitchurch Military Hospital in Cardiff.
It was here that Tom passed away, dying from a combination of chronic phlebitis – an extension of the varicose veins he had previously complained of – and general paralysis on 8th August 1918. He was, by this point, 41 years of age.
Tom Harris was brought back to Somerset for burial. He was laid to rest – finally at peace – in Chard Cemetery.
Death and Service 