Tag Archives: 1919

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

Sergeant James Owen

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Sergeant James Owen

James Alfred Owen was born on 4th August 1877 and was the middle of three children to James and Sarah Owen. James Sr was a woodman from Herefordshire, who had moved the family to Radnor in mid-Wales.

James Jr’s early life has been lost to time, but by the time he turned 30, he had emigrated to Canada. He settled in the west coast town of Prince Rupert and found work as a salesman. On 28th January 1910 he married Hattie Whidden: the couple went on to have three children – Annie, Louisa and Dorothy.

War was coming to Europe, and James wanted to play his part for King and Country. He enlisted on 4th December 1915, joining the 103rd Battalion of the Canadian Infantry. His service records show that he stood 5ft 9ins (1.75m) tall and weighed 156lbs (70.8kg). His physical development was recorded as ‘average’, he had a ruddy complexion, brown hair and brown eyes. It was also noted that he had a birthmark in his left groin and his teeth were poor and required attention.

Private Owen departed for England in July 1916 and was assigned to the Oxney Camp in Hampshire. He was promoted to Corporal and then to Sergeant and, over the next few years, he remained in England. He was primarily based in barracks at Bramshott – also in Hampshire – though did spend time in Seaford in Sussex.

Sergeant Owen survived the war, but was admitted to the Ripon Military Hospital on 8th February 1919, having contracted bronchitis and malaria. The hospital didn’t have any specific expertise in contagious diseases, so it is likely that his move to Ripon was one stage of his move back to Canada.

Sadly, the conditions proved too much for James. He passed away on 17th February 1919, at the age of 41 years of age.

James Alfred Owen’s body was brought to Castle Cary in Somerset, where his sister Eleanor lived with her family. He was laid to rest in the town’s cemetery.

Commonwealth War Graves, Devon, Great War, history, illness, London, Middlesex, photography, Private, Somerset, Somerset Light Infantry, story, war

Private Wilfred Francis

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Private Wilfred Francis

Wilfred Harry Francis was born in October 1890 in Castle Cary. He was the oldest of eight children to Edward and Rosina Francis, both of whom had also been born in the Somerset Town. Edward was a baker in his younger days, but, by the 1911 census he was employed as a builder’s labourer. Wilfred was recorded in the same document as a tailor.

War was coming to Europe, and Wilfred enlisted. He had been a volunteer in the Somerset Light Infantry, but on 6th April 1915, he made this a formal role. His service records show that he stood 5ft 6ins (1.68m) tall had light blue eyes and light brown hair.

Private Francis was assigned to the 6th Battalion and sent to France in the summer of 1915. His battalion was immediately thrown into the thick of the fighting at Ypres. The intensity of the battles of Hooge and Bellewaarde seemed to impact Wilfred as, on 7th October, he was admitted to the 4th London General Hospital, suffering from shell shock.

Wilfred was discharged after two weeks, and signed off as fit for light duties. It seems that he didn’t return to the Western Front, but instead was transferred to the 3rd (Reserve) Battalion of the regiment, based in Devonport.

The memories still seemed to haunt Private Francis, however. He was admitted to hospital again – this time the County of Middlesex Hospital in Napsbury, near St Albans – with mania. This time his ‘mental deficiency’ proved to much for the army, and he was discharged from military service on 18th July 1916. His discharge papers show that he gave the hospital as his address and recommended that he be admitted to a civil asylum.

Wilfred’s trail goes cold for the next few years. He seems to have been brought back to Somerset for ongoing treatment, but passed away in Wells on 27th March 1919; the cause of his passing is not known. He was 28 years of age.

Wilfred Harry Francis was laid to rest in the Castle Cary Cemetery, hopefully finding peace at last.

Commonwealth War Graves, Dorset, Great War, history, illness, photography, Royal Berkshire Regiment, Somerset, story, war

Private Arthur Foote

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Private Arthur Foote

Arthur Thomas Foote was born on 18th June 1880 in the Dorset town of Sherborne. One of three children to Jane Foote, his mother married widower James Rose in 1887, giving Arthur a half-sibling. James passed away in 1889, and Jane married another widower – Albin Pitman – and Arthur had a further six siblings and half-siblings.

By this point, the family had moved to Somerset, settling in Compton Pauncefoot. The 1901 census recorded Arthur as having left the family home and he was boarding in nearby Holton. He had, by this time, found work as a carter.

Arthur had met Agnes Wetherall, a tailor’s daughter from the village of Baltonsborough. The couple married in Wells in April 1902, and set up home in nearby Glastonbury. They went on to have two children – Robert, who had been born in 1898, and Lillian, who was born in 1902 – and Arthur continued working as a carter for a miller.

When war broke out, Arthur enlisted. While full details of his service are not available, he joined the Royal Berkshire Regiment as a Private, and was assigned to their Labour Corps.

Robert had also enlisted early on in the war. He joined the 2nd Battalion Coldstream Guards, and was killed in fighting in Northern France in September 1916. He was awarded the Mons Star, and is commemorated on the memorial at Thiepval.

Arthur survived the war, and returned home in early 1919. He quickly came down with pneumonia, and passed away within a week of his return, on 11th February 1919. He was 38 years old.

Arthur Thomas Foote was laid to rest in a now overgrown plot at the top of Glastonbury Cemetery, walking distance from the family home.

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

Private Cuthbert Collard

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Private Cuthbert Collard

Cuthbert William George Collard was born in the spring of 1899, one of nine children to William and Eliza Collard. William was an agricultural labourer from North Newton in Somerset, and this is where he and Eliza raised their family. While probably helping his father out as a child, Cuthbert found work at the local blacksmith’s when he left school.

Cuthbert was barely fifteen when war broke out in Europe, and so had to wait until April 1917 before he was of age to enlist. He joined the Devonshire Regiment, and his service records show that he was 5ft 2ins (1.57m) tall, had black hair, brown eyes and a pale complexion.

Assigned to the 4th (Reserve) Battalion, Private Collard served his time on home soil. While full details are not available, it appears that he contracted tuberculosis during his training. This was serious enough for treatment in a sanatorium to be recommended, and he was medically discharged from military service because of the lung condition on 9th January 1918. He had been in the army for just 280 days.

At this point, Cuthbert’s trail goes cold. Whether he was admitted for medical treatment is unclear, but it appears that he returned to North Newton. He passed away on 19th June 1919 at the family home, aged just 20 years old.

Cuthbert William George Collard was laid to rest in the graveyard of the village church, St Peter’s.

accident, Captain, Commonwealth War Graves, Great War, history, North Somerset Yeomanry, photography, Royal Air Force, Somerset, story, Surrey, war

Captain John Jackson-Barstow

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Captain John Jackson-Barstow

John Eric Jackson-Barstow was born on 10th August 1895, and was one of seven children – and the only boy – to John and Mary Jackson-Barstow. John Sr was a Justice of the Peace from Yorkshire, who had moved his family to Somerset in the early 1890s; this is where John Jr and his sisters were born.

When war broke out, John Jr enlisted as a Trooper in the North Somerset Yeomanry and, by the autumn of 1914, he was moved to France.

On the outskirts of Ypres, his regiment were involved in a prolonged attack by German forces and Trooper Jackson-Barstow was injured. Medically evacuated to England, he received a commission and was given the role of aide-de-camp to a general based on the East Coast.

In 1917, Captain Jackson-Barstow transferred to the Royal Flying Corps – later moving to the newly-formed Royal Air Force. Over the following months, he regularly flew sorties across France and did extensive piloting in English skies.

Captain Jackson-Barstow continued in his role when the Armistice was signed. On 27th January 1919, he was flying in Surrey; it was snowing heavily, which limited what he could see. Flying low, he crashed into a hill near Oxted, and was killed instantly. He was just 23 years of age.

John Eric Jackson-Barstow’s body was brought back to Somerset; he was laid to rest in the family grave in the Milton Road Cemetery in Weston-super-Mare.

Captain John Jackson-Barstow
(from findagrave.com)
Commonwealth War Graves, Corporal, Great War, history, illness, injury, Kings Royal Rifle Corps, Norfolk, Northamptonshire Regiment, photography, Private, Somerset, story, war

Corporal Norman Allard

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Corporal Norman Allard

Norman Stanley Allard was born on 3rd December 1892 in the village of Corsley, Wiltshire, halfway between Frome and Warminster. The younger of two children, his parents were Benjamin and Mercy Allard. Benjamin was a farmer who passed away when his son was only 14 years old. Mercy, who was born in Frome, moved the family back to her home town and Norman found work as a clerk at a printing firm in the area.

War came to Europe and, in December 1915, Norman was called up. There is little specific information about his military service, although his records show that he was 5ft 9ins (1.75m) tall and had varicocele – enlarged veins in his scrotum – listed as Distinctive Marks.

Initially assigned to the King’s Royal Rifles, Private Allard spent the first year of his service on home soil. He was eventually dispatched to France in March 1917, serving there for a year. On 22nd March 1918, he was wounded in a gas attack, and medically evacuated back to England.

He was called back into service, and assigned to the 9th Battalion of the Northamptonshire Regiment. He remained on home soil, working as part of the Labour Corps in Cley-next-the-Sea in Norfolk. Sadly, however, it seems that his injuries were to prove too much, and the now Corporal Allard was discharged from military service after just three months.

At this point, Norman’s trail goes cold. He returned home, and passed away there on 13th March 1919. He was just 26 years of age.

Norman Stanley Allard was laid to rest in the graveyard of Holy Trinity Church. This became a family grave, and his mother and sister were also buried there when they passed in 1924 and 1940.

Bedfordshire Regiment, Commonwealth War Graves, Great War, history, illness, India, photography, Private, Somerset, story, war

Private Herbert Ford

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Private Herbert Ford

Herbert Edgar Ford is one of those people whose early life is destined to remain lost to time. His first names appear interchangeably on documents, with Herbert also being shortened to Bertie, but this means there is no definite trail to his early years.

He was born in Frome, Somerset, around the beginning of 1890, though nothing remains to suggest who his parents would have been. He married at the start of 1914, to local woman Ethel Mary Butler, and they went on to have a daughter, Doreen, at the end of the year.

By that point, war had been declared, and Herbert wanted to play his part. Full details of his military service are not available, but it is evident that he had enlisted in the Bedfordshire regiment by 1918. His troop – the 1st Garrison Battalion – were dispatched to India and were based in Delhi for the majority of the war, but it is unclear when or if Private Ford joined them.

Sadly, the next record for Private Ford is the notice of his death in the local newspaper. This confirms that he died on 16th April 1919 at Birmingham Hospital, “after a long and painful illness” [Somerset Standard: Friday 25th April 1919]. He was just 29 years of age.

Herbert Edgar Ford’s body was brought back to Somerset: he was laid to rest in the graveyard of Holy Trinity Church in his home town of Frome.

Commonwealth War Graves, Great War, history, illness, Kent, photography, Private, Somerset, Somerset Light Infantry, story, Suffolk, war

Private Bertie Stent

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Private Bertie Stent

Bertie Reginald Stent was born early in 1892, one of fifteen children to Henry and Emily. Henry was a painter – initially for the railways, and then a house painter – from Frome, Somerset, and the family were raised on The Mint in town.

When he left school, Bertie also left an overcrowded home. He found work as a carter, and moved to Wellow, near Bath, where he boarded with stonemason Albert Barnes and his family. War was coming to Europe, however, and things were about to change.

Bertie enlisted in the 85th Provisional Battalion of the Territorial Force early on in the conflict. He was initially based on home soil, serving in Herne Bay in Kent and Wrentham in Suffolk. His troop became the 11th Battalion of the Somerset Light Infantry at the start of 1917 and, by the spring of the following year, he found himself in Northern France.

By this point, Bertie had met and married a woman called Ethel May. Sadly, little further information about the wedding is available, but the couple set up home in the same road as his parents and went on to have two children.

Private Stent was involved in some of the final battles of the war – the Battle of Albert and the advances in Artois and Flanders. When the Armistice was signed, he remained in France, returning home in the following spring.

Tragically, he had contracted influenza while waiting to be demobbed and, on 29th March 1919, he passed away at home from pneumonia. He was just 27 years old and had been back in Frome for just a week.

Bertie Reginald Stent was laid to rest in the churchyard of Holy Trinity Church in Frome, within sight of his family home.

While there is little information about Bertie and Ethel’s marriage, there is some detail about her life after her husband’s death. Ethel continued to live in Frome, on the same road as her marital home. The 1939 Register lists her as an unpaid domestic worker – in effect, a housewife – and she is living with Reginald, her and Bertie’s second child, who was a land worker.

Bertie’s sister, Annie, married Albert Withey, who also died after coming home from war. Read his story here.

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

Private Charles Baily

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Charles Baily

Charles Baily was born in Frome, Somerset, in March 1879; he was the middle of three children to Charles and Sarah Baily. Charles Sr was a plasterer, and the family were raised in a small cottage to the south of the town centre.

When Charles Jr left school, he found work as a carpenter and, on 17th March 1902, he married local woman Fanny Howell. Her father was a carter and she had not long returned from South Wales, where she had found employment as a parlour maid. Charles and Fanny set up home just three doors down from his parents, and went on to have five children.

War was coming to Europe, but the details of most of Charles’ military service are lost. He enlisted as a Private in the Somerset Light Infantry, and was assigned to B Company of the 1st/4th Battalion. The troop was sent to Bombay in the autumn of 1914; it then moved to Basra in the spring of 1916, remaining in Mesopotamia for the remainder of the conflict. Sadly, it’s not possible to know how much of this travel Private Baily undertook himself.

Charles survived the war, and was demobbed soon after the Armistice. He returned home, but his time back with his family was to be short: Private Baily died at home through causes lost to time on 2nd July 1919. He was 40 years old.

Charles Baily was laid to rest in the graveyard of Holy Trinity Church in his home town of Frome.

One sad aside to the story is that Charles and Fanny’s oldest child, daughter Frances Baily, had passed away in the summer of 1917. The cause of her passing is also lost to history, but she was just 16 years old when she died.

Commonwealth War Graves, Devon, Great War, history, Labour Corps, photography, Private, Somerset Light Infantry, story, unknown, war

Private Thomas Cornall

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Private Thomas Cornall

Thomas Cornall was born in Kingsteignton, Devon, early in 1879 and was the oldest of seven children to Thomas and Elizabeth Cornall. Thomas Sr was a clay cutter and, while the family were all raised in Kingsteignton, Thomas Jr appears to have been more wayward, and was farmed out to local relatives over time.

The 1881 census shows Thomas living with his parents; ten years later he was living with his maternal grandmother; in 1901 he was boarding with Elizabeth’s brother, John Withycombe, in Devonport; the 1911 census recorded him living with his sister and her family in the village of Chudleigh.

Thomas took on labouring jobs. He worked as a dockworker in Devonport, and a haulier in Chudleigh. War was coming to Europe, however, and Thomas was pulled in a different direction.

Full details of his military career are not available, but it is clear that he enlisted in the Somerset Light Infantry early on in the conflict. Whether Private Cornall saw active service overseas is lost to time, but he soon transferred over to the 696th Agricultural Company of the Labour Corps.

Thomas’ maternal uncle – John Withycombe – who had had lived with in 1901, had become manager of the Lion Hotel in Chudleigh and when he died in 1913, he left his wife, Bertha, with a son to raise and a business to run. At the end of 1916, Thomas and Bertha married in nearby Newton Abbot and took on the running of the Lion Hotel together.

Private Cornall was still serving at this point, and continued his work in the Labour Corps through until the end of the war. His trail at this point goes cold; all that is known is that he died at home on 8th January 1919, at the age of 40 years old.

Thomas Cornall was laid to rest in Chudleigh Cemetery. The family plot included John and Bertha, when she passed away in 1954.