Tag Archives: 1918

Commonwealth War Graves, Great War, Gunner, history, injury, photography, Royal Field Artillery, Somerset, story, war

Gunner Frederick Comer

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Gunner Frederick Comer

Frederick George Comer was born on 8th July 1893, the older of two children to Fred Comer and his wife Fanny. Fred Sr was a decorator, and raised his family in his town of his birth, Weston-super-Mare.

While his younger brother Clifford followed in his father’s footsteps and became a decorator, Frederick Jr had set his sights elsewhere. The Western-super-Mare Gazette and General Advertiser reported on 31st December 1910, that he had gained a certificate by Pitman’s Shorthand with a speed of 60 words per minute. Within a year, he was working as a news reporter in the local area.

War was on the horizon, but sadly this is where Frederick’s trail goes a bit cold. He enlisted in the Royal Field Artillery, although existing documents do not confirm a date for this. Gunner Comer definitely served overseas, however, and was wounded in action.

Sadly, the other information available confirms that Gunner Comer died from his wounds on 5th December 1918. He was just 25 years old.

Frederick George Comer’s body was brought back to Weston-super-Mare; he lies at rest in the Milton Cemetery in his home town.

Canada, Canadian Infantry, Commonwealth War Graves, Great War, Hampshire, history, illness, photography, Private, Somerset, story, war

Private Charles Dyer

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Private Charles Dyer

Charles William Dyer was born on 12th May 1895, the youngest of seven children to Harry and Mary Dyer.

Harry was a farmer, who brought his family up in the village of Kewstoke, just to the north of Weston-super-Mare, Somerset. He seems to have been keen to try new things because he and Mary lived for a while in Australia, and their first two children were born there. They then moved back to the UK in around 1887, settling back in Somerset.

By the time of the 1911 census, Charles was 16 years old, and all of the family were helping out on the farm. He seemed to share his father’s sense of adventure; in 1913, he emigrated to Canada, setting himself up as a farmhand in Winnipeg.

War was coming to Europe, however, and Charles joined up. He enlisted in October 1917, joining the Canadian Infantry. Leaving Canada on a troop ship on 19th February 1918, he arrived back in England on 4th March.

Private Dyer was soon installed at the Canadian Infantry camp at Bramshott in Hampshire. Within weeks of arriving in England, however, he had contracted influenza; this developed into pneumonia, and was admitted to the camp’s Military Hospital on 22nd May. Sadly, a week later, Private Dyer was dead. He was just 23 years old.

Charles William Dyer was taken back to Weston-super-Mare and laid to rest in the Milton Cemetery there.

Charles Dyer (on right) in Canada
(Courtesy of ancestry.co.uk)
Cambridgeshire, Captain, Commonwealth War Graves, Gloucestershire, Gloucestershire Regiment, Great War, history, illness, injury, photography, Somerset, story, war

Captain Arthur Poole

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Captain Arthur Poole

Arthur George Poole was born in Brislington, Somerset, in April 1893. His father, George, was a master builder, and with his mother, Rhoda, the family raise their five children in the Bristol suburb.

Arthur was obvious a bright lad; he attended the Bristol Grammar School, excelling at football, hockey and cricket. After finishing school, he joined a firm of Bristol solicitors and was also appointed secretary of the Bristol Law Society. He went on to continue his studies, when he was accepted to read law at Emmanuel College, Cambridge.

The war was on the horizon, however, and he was called upon to do his duty.

He joined Bristol’s Own (12th Gloucester Regiment) in 1914, and was musketry officer at Chiseldon for some months before going to France in 1915, where he was attached to the 6th Gloucester Regiment.

Within three months he had a severe attack of trench fever, and was home on sick leave for a few weeks. He was severely wounded in October 1917, and came back to England for good. Some months later he was mentioned in despatches. He spent a year in hospital, and although not discharged, was allowed to resume his law studies.

Gloucestershire Echo: Saturday 14th December 1918

While in hospital, Captain Poole contracted influenza, which then became pneumonia. Although recovering from his injuries, it was these conditions that were to get the better of him, and he passed away on 23rd November 1918, at the age of 25 years old.

Arthur George Poole was laid to rest in the pretty graveyard of St Andrew’s Church in Clevedon, Somerset, where his parents now lived.

Captain Arthur Poole
Army Veterinary Corps, Commonwealth War Graves, Devon, Great War, Hampshire, history, illness, photography, Sergeant, Somerset, story, war

Serjeant Harry Stephens

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Serjeant Harry Stephens

Harry Stephens was born in Banwell, near Weston-super-Mare on 4th January 1873. He was one of six children to Frederick Stephens and his wife, Emma. Frederick was a butcher, and this was a trade that both Harry and his older brother, Fred, would go into when they left school.

It appears that being a butcher was not the full-time career that Harry was looking for, and so, in the 1890s, he found other employment as a farmer, and moved to Lynton, on the north coast of Devon.

It was here that he met Norah Watts, another farmer’s daughter and, in 1898, the couple married. They set up home at Furzehill Farm, and went on to have four children, Frederick, Alice, Albert and Herbert.

By the time of the 1911 census, Harry had moved his family back to Banwell, where they lived in a four-roomed house on the High Street. Harry was now a cattle dealer, and was presumably supplying meat to his mother who, having been widowed in 1902, was now running the butcher’s shop with three of Harry’s siblings.

War was coming, though, and on 21st July 1915, Harry enlisted. Given his farming background, he was assigned to the Army Veterinary Corps and, while remaining on the Home Front, over the next few years he gained promotion.

Towards the end of 1917, when Serjeant Stephens was serving in Romsey, Hampshire, he fell ill, complaining of chest pains and breathlessness. He was taken to Hursley Hospital near Winchester for cardiac checks, and it became apparent that he was no longer fit for active duty.

Discharged from military service on 5th July 1918, he returned home. Admitted to the Military Hospital in Taunton, it was only a matter of weeks later than Serjeant Stephens passed away. He was 45 years of age.

Harry Stephens was laid to rest in the St James’ Cemetery in Taunton.

Commonwealth War Graves, Great War, history, illness, injury, photography, Private, Royal Warwickshire Regiment, Somerset, Somerset Light Infantry, story, war, Warwickshire

Private Robert Voisey

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Private Robert Voisey

Robert Voisey was born towards the end of 1891, one of six children to Richard and Sophia. Richard was a tailor and, while both he and Sophia had been born in Cullompton, Devon, by the time Robert was born, they had moved to the Somerset town of Taunton.

When he left school, Robert followed his father’s trade and, by the time of the 1911 census, he was living with his parents and two of his sisters in a terraced house not far from the town’s station.

With the outbreak of the Great War, Robert was keen to do his bit. While full details of his military service are not available, it seems that he initially enlisted in the Somerset Light Infantry, but was subsequently transferred to the Royal Warwickshire Regiment. Joining the 6th Battalion as a Private, he saw action on the Western Front, and was wounded in April 1918.

Evacuated to England for treatment, Private Voisey was admitted to the 5th Northern General Hospital in Leicester. He seemed to be recovering well from his injuries, but then contracted influenza.

Sadly, this developed into pneumonia and Private Voisey subsequently died on 23rd October 1918, at the tender age of 25 years old.

Robert Voisey’s body was brought back to Somerset and he was laid to rest in the St James’ Cemetery in the town.

Robert’s funeral was written up in the local newspaper, and the report sheds more of a light on the Edwardian attitude towards some medical and mental health conditions than it does on the actual service.

The very fact of [Robert] ever having been a soldier, considering the great disability he was afflicted with through an incurable impediment in his speech, testifies abundantly to his high and noble interpretation of duty and patriotism.

Had he insisted he could at any time have evaded military service, but so eager was he to serve his country that it was not until he had actually been four times rejected as “physically unfit for military service” was he eventually accepted.

To the writer o this brief notice, who was his friend and fellow shop-mate for a long while, but who was at the time doing duty at Castle Green Recruiting Office, he often time used to express his indignation at not being accepted, and on the last occasion he spoke to the writer, it was to emphatically declare himself “as fit to be a soldier as anyone who had yet left Taunton.”

He dreaded the thought of being considered a shirker, and his opinion of many who have, even up till now, successfully evaded service, though far more physically fit than he was, was contemptuous to the bitterest extreme.

He was a true Britisher, a faithful friend and shop-mate, and a courageous soldier of whom no fitter epitaph could be written than “he gave himself in defence of home, country and liberty.”

Taunton Courier and Western Advertiser: Wednesday 6th November 1918
Chief Stoker, Commonwealth War Graves, Great War, history, illness, Petty Officer, photography, Royal Navy, Somerset, Stoker, story, war

Chief Stoker William Thorne

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Chief Stoker William Thorne

William Henry Thorne was born on 28th July 1881 in the Somerset village of Milverton. He was the oldest of five children to farm labourer Henry Thorne and his wife Mary.

William was a young man with a keen sense of adventure. In February 1900, he joined the Royal Navy as a Stoker. After his initial training in Devonport, he was assigned to HMS Thunderer and, after six months, joined HMS Hood, where he spent the next two years.

Over his twelve years of his service, Stoker Thorne served on six further vessels, attaining the rank of Stoker Petty Officer.

In 1907, William had married Mabel Cross, a young woman from Taunton. While her husband was away from England – the marriage certificate gives his address as ‘on the high seas’ – she set up home near the centre of town. The young couple went on to have two children, twins Phyllis and Doris, who were born in 1911.

Back at sea, and Stoker Petty Officer Thorne’s terms of service were extended in 1912, so that he would continue to be a part of the Royal Navy until the cessation of hostilities. He served on a further six vessels and was promoted to Chief Stoker in June 1917.

It was while he was serving on HMS Griffon in the autumn of 1918 that William fell ill. Brought back to shore, he was admitted to the Military Hospital in Taunton. There is nothing to confirm the illness he contracted, but it was one he would succumb to. Chief Stoker Thorne passed away on 29th September. He was 37 years old.

William Henry Thorne lies at peace in the St James Cemetery in his home town of Taunton.

Commonwealth War Graves, Corporal, Devon, Great War, history, illness, photography, Royal Engineers, Somerset, story, war

Corporal Harry Moore

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Corporal Harry Moore

Harry Moore was born in Tiverton, Devon, in early 1877. He was the fourth of eleven children to James Moore, a railway policeman, and his wife Ann.

By 1890, James had moved the family to Taunton, in Somerset (where his work was now listed as railway porter). Over the next decade, Harry was to encounter tragedy and happiness.

In 1894, his father died from Bright’s disease (a kidney complaint), at the age of just 45 years old.

Three years later, Harry’s mother died, from what appears to have been heart failure. Ann was 49 years of age.

On 13th November 1898, Harry married Alice Mary Larcombe, a dressmaker from Taunton. The young couple set up home together in the north of the town. They went on to have five children, although, sadly, only one would live to reach their 20s.

By now Harry had found employment as an insurance agent, but war was coming to Europe. His military records are lost to time, but he enlisted in the Royal Engineers and was assigned to G Depot Company. (The Depot Battalions received men who had returned from the Expeditionary Force and also those men who had enlisted for Tunnelling Companies, Special Companies and other specialist units.)

The next evidence we have of Corporal Moore is in the Army Register of Soldiers’ Effects. This confirms that he had been admitted to the Southern General Hospital in Bristol with an illness, and that he subsequently passed away on 28th August 1918, at the age of 41.

Harry Moore was laid to rest in the St James’ Cemetery in his home town of Taunton.

Commonwealth War Graves, Great War, history, photography, Private, Somerset, Somerset Light Infantry, story, unknown, war, Wiltshire

Private Percy Prince

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Private Percy Prince

Percy Prince was born in 1890, one of seven children to John and Eliza Prince. John was an agricultural labourer and coal merchant, and brought his family up on the Somerset/Wiltshire border, near Bruton.

Percy followed in his father’s line of work when he left school, eventually moving to Frome. He met and married a woman called Florence Stickler in July 1909, setting up home in Water Lane, to the south of the town centre.

War was soon beckoning, and Percy enlisted in the Somerset Light Infantry as a Private. Sadly, his service records are lost to time, and so details of him time in the army are not available. What we do know is that he was assigned to one of the depots, although which one is not clear.

Sadly, that is about the limit of information available about Private Prince. He died on 11th April 1918, at the Military Hospital in Taunton. There is nothing to confirm a cause of death, but he just was 28 years old.

Percy Prince was buried in St James’ Cemetery in Taunton.

Artificer, Commonwealth War Graves, Devon, Great War, history, illness, photography, Royal Navy, Scotland, Somerset, story, war

Engine Room Artificer Newman Bailey

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Engine Room Artificer 4th Class Newman Bailey

Newman Joynt Bailey was born on 1st August 1887, the eldest of five children to Newman Bailey and his wife Anna (née Joynt). Newman Sr worked as a switchman and signalman for Great Western Railway and had been born in Bath. He married Anna (whose maiden name was Joynt, and who had been born in Ireland) in 1885 and, after a short stint living across the county border in Devon – where Newman Jr was born – he settled his young family in Taunton.

When Newman Jr left school, he became an office boy, but he soon found himself following in his father’s footsteps. He became a fitter for the railways and, by 1910, was living with spitting distance of the GWR depot in the town.

It was here, in William Street, that he set up home with his new wife, Lily Gill, who he had married on 31t July 1910. Lily was the daughter of a Taunton lamplighter, and, to help make ends meet, worked as an ironer at the town’s collar factory.

War was on the way, and in July 1915, Newman enlisted in the Royal Navy. After initial training aboard Vivid II, the shore establishment in Devonport, he was deployed on HMS Blake as an Engine Room Artificer.

HMS Blake was an auxiliary ship designed to provide maintenance support to a flotilla of destroyers or other small warships. With his experience with steam engines at GWR, his knowledge of mechanics would have made him ideally suited to this type of role.

While he survived the war, Artificer Bailey was to be struck down with something much closer to home. In the immediate post-war period, the Spanish Flu pandemic swept the globe, and Newman was to fall victim to it. Admitted to the Royal Naval Hospital in South Queensferry, near Edinburgh, he passed away from the lung condition on 23rd November 1918. He was just 32 years old.

Brought back home, Newman Joynt Bailey was laid to rest in St James Cemetery in his home town of Taunton.

Commonwealth War Graves, Great War, history, illness, Labour Corps, Northumberland Fusiliers, photography, Private, Royal Army Medical Corps, Somerset, story, war

Private Percy Payne

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Private Percy Payne

Percy Payne was born in the village of Kingston Seymour, between Weston-super-Mare and Yatton, Somerset. His parents were agricultural labourer Harry Payne and his wife, Elizabeth, and he had three brothers.

It seems that Percy’s parents may well have separated by 1911; Elizabeth is listed as a widow in the 1911 census, but Harry appears to be alive and well and living in South Wales.

According to the census records, Elizabeth was working as a charwoman, while three of her children were working to help support the family. Percy’s two older brothers were employed as a carter and a domestic servant, while Percy himself was working as an errand boy.

By the time war broke out, Percy has stepped up the ladder. His service records listed his trade as a groom, working in Congresbury, near Bristol. He enlisted in March 1916, at the age of 19 years and 8 months, and was assigned as a Private in the Northumberland Fusiliers. He spent most of that year training on home soil, before being shipped out to France at the end of December.

Illness seems to have dogged Private Payne; he returned to England after a couple of months, and was transferred to the Labour Corps fairly soon afterwards. By September 1917 a further transfer was made, this time to the Royal Army Medical Corps, before he was finally discharged from military service on 21st January 1918, suffering from tuberculosis.

Sadly, the lung condition was to prove fatal, and Percy passed away on 26th June 1918. He was just 21 years old.

Percy Payne lies at rest in the graveyard of St Mary’s Church in the village of Yatton, Somerset.