Herbert George Spiller was born in 1881, the second of four children to George and Emily Spiller. George was a timber merchant and ironmonger, born in Taunton, Somerset, who raised his family in his home town.
When Herbert left school, he found work as a clerk in a solicitor’s office, and this was the trade he followed, eventually becoming a solicitor in his own right.
In March 1907, he married Winifred Lewis, an outfitter’s daughter, and the couple soon emigrated, arriving in Perth, Australia, later that year. They had two children in Australia; a son, who sadly passed as a babe in arms, and a daughter. Within three years, however, the Spillers were back living in England again and went on to have four further children, three of whom survived infancy.
War had arrived, and Herbert enlisted on 11th December 1915, but was initially placed as a reserve. He was finally called to do his duty for King and country on 6th September 1917 and joined the 28th Battalion of the London Regiment. After initial training, Private Spiller was sent out to the Front, arriving in France in April 1918.
Herbert was back on home soil after three months, suffering from albuminaria (a disease of the kidneys) and served in territorial depots until he was demobbed in December 1918.
At this point, Herbert disappears from the records. It seems likely that his illness was the cause of his passing, but this cannot be confirmed. Either way, Herbert George Spiller died on 7th May 1920, at the age of 39 years old. He lies at rest in the St James Cemetery in his home town of Taunton, Somerset.
Please note: While Private Spiller was afforded a Commonwealth War Grave, his exact burial location is not identifiable. The image at the top of this post, therefore, is of the other family graves in the cemetery.
Arthur Llewellyn was born in the summer of 1873, one of four children to Evan and Mary Llewellyn. Originally from Wales, Evan was a Justice of the Peace in the Somerset village of Burrington, and the family lived in the comparative luxury of Langford Court, a mile or so from the village centre.
I use the term ‘comparative luxury’ with some sense of irony; according to the 1881 census, the family had a household staff of eight, including a governess, two nurses, housemaid, cook, kitchen maid, parlour maid and page.
Ambition was obviously what drove Evan; he was an army office, who served in initially in the Somerset Light Infantry. In 1885, he was elected MP for North Somerset, a position he held on and off for nearly twenty years. His military service continued, however, and he led the 2nd (Central African) Battalion, King’s African Rifles in the Boer War.
Comfort ran in the Llewellyn family; according to the 1891 census, Arthur was staying with his maternal aunt, Rose Stewart. She also lived in Somerset, and, at the time the census was drawn up, she was recorded as a widow living on her own means, with her mother, mother-in-law, two nieces and Arthur, her nephew. She was not without help, however, as the house had a retinue of eight staff to support her.
Military life was an obvious draw for Arthur. He enlisted in the Somerset Light Infantry in October 1891 and, within a year, had been promoted to Second Lieutenant.
He had met and married Meriel Byrne, in 1895. The couple’s marriage certificate confirms that he had been promoted to Captain in the militia, and his residence was Buckingham Palace Road, in south west London. They were married in Holy Trinity Church, Brompton, with Meriel’s mother and Arthur’s father acting as witnesses.
The couple went on to have five children, all girls, and they settled into a comfortable life. By 1901, Meriel had set up home in Worcestershire; Arthur does not appear on that year’s census, which suggests that he may too have been fighting in South Africa.
Arthur’s mother Mary passed away in 1906, at the tender age of 39. By 1911, he had been promoted to Lieutenant Colonel in the 3rd Somerset Light Infantry, and was head of his household in Worcestershire. The family was, by this time, complete – Arthur and Meriel and their five children also had help running their home, with two nurses, a cook, parlour maid and housemaid to support them.
Evan passed away months before war was declared, at the age of 67. Lieutenant Colonel Llewellyn felt duty bound to re-enlist, and was given command of the 3rd Reserve Battalion, Somerset Light Infantry. He subsequently served as part of the Army Service Corps in France, before transferring to the Army Labour Corps in Nottingham.
According to the Evening Mail, on 27th April 1920, he “was suddenly seized with illness in the street, and died as he was being conveyed to Nottingham Hospital. He was 46 years of age.”
Arthur was brought back to Burrington in Somerset, where he was buried alongside his parents in Holy Trinity Churchyard.
Sadly, Meriel passed away nine months after her husband; she too is buried in Holy Trinity Churchyard.
Arthur’s estate passed to his brother, Owen, and totalled £12,023 15s 11d (approximately £530,000 in today’s money).
As an aside to Arthur’s illustrious story, another of his brothers is worthy of note. Hoel Llewellyn was two years older than Arthur.
Educated for the Royal Navy, he saw active service on the East Coast of Africa, 1888-90 with despatches. He also served as Artillery Officer and commanded artillery in the Matabele War, where he was recommended for the Victoria Cross. He was promoted Captain in the British South Africa Police, and Justice of the Peace in Matabeleland in1896.
Captain Llewellyn served throughout the South African War; commanding armoured trains north of Mafeking before transferring to the South African Constabulary in 1901. Hoel was eventually created a Companion of the Distinguished Service Order for his service in South Africa.
He was wounded while serving with the Mediterranean Expeditionary Force in the Great War. Hoel was subsequently promoted to the rank of Colonel and appointed Provost-Marshal of Egypt and the British Mediterranean Expeditionary Force.
In 1908, he had been made Chief Constable of Wiltshire, a role he was to hold for 37 years. He was key to pioneering the use of police dogs, and went on to become the oldest serving person to hold the Chief Constable role in the county.
Evan Henry Llewellyn
Another aspect of the Llewellyn family is that Evan was obviously a source of political drive for the family; his great-great-grandson is David Cameron, UK Prime Minister from 2010 to 2016.
David Charles was born towards the end of 1893 and was one of eight children. His parents – David Sr and Elizabeth Charles – both came from Wales, and moved their young family to Kent in 1891. David Sr worked at a torpedo factory, and the move may have been determined by employment at the Naval Dockyard in Chatham, Kent.
When he left school, David Jr found work at an ironmonger’s, but storm clouds were forming over Europe, and he was soon called up on to do his duty for King and country.
David Jr enlisted in July 1915, joining the 23rd Reserve Battalion. He transferred to the Machine Gun Corps in February 1917 and was posted to the Western Front a month later.
Private Charles was wounded in action on 7th October 1917, although the injury did not prevent him from returning to duty after three weeks’ rest. He was readmitted to hospital on 23rd November, eventually being transferred home on a hospital ship before Christmas.
On 11th January 1918, Private Charles was transferred to No. 5 Battalion in Grantham, where he was promoted to Acting Lance Corporal within a couple of months. Sickness dogged him, however, and he was eventually discharged from military service for medical reasons on 7th August 1920.
By this time, David had been admitted to Fort Pitt Hospital in Chatham with endocarditis – enlarged heart – and this is where he sadly passed away from the condition just a week after being discharged from the army. He died on 14th August 1920, at the age of 27 years old.
David Charles lies at rest in the Woodlands Cemetery in Gillingham, Kant.
David seems not to have been originally commemorated by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission. I can find no record of why this might have been the case, but this was eventually rectified 10th February 2016, and his name was immediately added to the United Kingdom Book of Remembrance.
The United Kingdom Book of Remembrance commemorates United Kingdom casualties of the two World Wars who were not formerly recorded by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission. The men and women remembered on it are recent additions to the list of war dead and are presently commemorated solely by their database record and register entry.
The register is maintained at the Commonwealth War Graves Commission’s Head Office, Maidenhead, and the names remain recorded there until such time as The Commission has investigated the grave location details.
David’s grave was identified and a headstone now placed in its rightful position.
Christopher William Thomas Faulkner was born in 1881, one of five children to William and Harriet Faulkner. There is little information about Christopher’s early life, but the 1891 census shows him living with his mother and siblings in the St George’s Barracks in St Martin in the Fields in central London. William is not listed, so it can only be assumed that he was away on duty when the census was completed.
Christopher attended the military school; his record confirms that he was born on 17th June 1881, and spent four months at the school when he was ten years old. William is listed as a Sergeant and the family were living at the St George’s Barracks, which were located in the site now occupied by the National Portrait Gallery.
The military life was indelibly in Christopher’s life by this point. Whilst the records are sparse, he had certainly enlisted by the time he was 25. On Boxing Day 1904 he married a woman called Essie Brant, the daughter of a tailor from Croydon.
On the marriage certificate, Christopher was listed as a Lance Corporal in the Royal Marine Light Infantry and was based at the barracks in Chatham, Kent.
The young couple went on to have four children together and, by 1911, Essie was living in Gillingham, not far from the naval base in Chatham. The majority of Christopher’s career was served here, although when war broke out, he also saw conflict overseas.
By 1916, he was promoted to Sergeant and was assigned to HMS Dominion, which patrolled the North Sea. Ill health must have taken hold, however, and by the end of 1917, Sergeant Faulkner was reassigned to Chatham, before being medically discharged at the beginning of the following year.
Sadly, there is no record of the cause of his release from duty, but it appears to have been something to which he would eventually succumb. The next record is of Sergeant Faulkner’s death, on 5th January 1920, at the age of 39 years old.
Christopher William Thomas Faulkner lies at rest in the Woodlands Cemetery in Gillingham, Kent.
Christopher’s grave also acts as a memorial to his son.
Leslie Albert Gerald Faulkner was born on 9th June 1910. On leaving school, he sought military service like his father, and enlisted in the Royal Navy for a period of twelve years’ service.
Unusually, details of his service appear to end after just three years, in January 1929. However, later records confirm that he continued to serve at HMS Pembroke, the on-shore vessel in Chatham, through to the Second World War, achieving the rank of Chief Petty Officer.
Chief Perry Officer Faulkner’s military records did thrown up some further information, though. Surprisingly, his death records give specific details of the cause of his passing, stating that it was a “rupture of the liver due to secondary neoplasm of the liver, due to primary seminoma of testis”. In effect, Leslie had suffered testicular cancer, which then spread to his liver.
Leslie Albert Gerald Faulkner died on 28th November 1945, at the age of just 35 years old. He was buried in the same grave as his father, in Woodlands Cemetery, Gillingham.
Charles Frederick Caleb Miller was born on 12th December 1887 in Gillingham, Kent. His parents were Charles and Harriet Miller, and he had two younger siblings, Mabel and Harriet.
Tragically, Charles Jr’s mother died when he was only three years old; his father went on to marry again – to his widow’s younger sister, Jane – and the couple had two further children – Jane and Beatrice – who were Charles Jr’s half-sisters.
Charles Sr worked as a ship’s rigger in the Military Dockyard in Chatham, and naval life obviously caught his son’s eye. In 1903, having left school, he enlisted in the Royal Navy, started as a ‘boy artificer’, working in the engine and boiler rooms of ships.
His initial service was for twelve years, and he worked on a number of vessels, as well as being assigned to HMS Pembroke, the shore base in Chatham. He worked his way through the ranks to Engine Room Artificer 2nd Class by 1915.
In June of that year, Charles married Ellen Holden. the daughter of a dairyman from Chelsea. The couple went on to have a daughter, Joan, who was born in 1918. At the time of their wedding, Charles was based on HMS Lance, and his military service was to continue.
His period of service extended until the end of the war, Charles served on a number of other vessels, including HMS Surprise, Blenheim and Prince George and rose to Chief Engine Room Artificer 2nd Class.
It was while he was assigned to HMS Ganges in January 1920 that he became unwell, however. He had contracted bronchial pneumonia, and died of a combination of that and heart failure on 9th February 1920. He was 32 years old.
Charles Frederick Caleb Miller lies at rest in Woodlands Cemetery in his home town of Gillingham, Kent.
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.
William Reginald Coggan was born in Twerton, near Bath, at the end of 1882. His father, also called William, was a railway guard, and with his mother, Annie, he would go on to raise nine children, six of them girls.
William Jr became known as Reginald, presumably to avoid confusion with his father. He didn’t follow his father onto the railways, but found a way to serve his country. In the 1901 census, he was working as a baker for the Army Service Corps, and was based at the Stanhope Lines Barracks in Aldershot (along with more than 1800 others).
Ten years later – by the time of the 1911 census – William had left the army but continued his trade. He was listed as a baker of confections in Glastonbury, was living above the bakery with his wife of four years. I have been able to find little information about his wife, Kate, other than that she came from Dublin.
William Coggan’s former bakery in Glastonbury, Somerset.
William’s life becomes a little vague after the census. A newspaper report confirms that he had served in the South Africa war (1899-1902), and that he had seen five years’ service in France. The report – and William’s pension records – confirm that he had continued in the Army Service Corps, gaining the rank of Staff Sergeant.
William had died in Ireland, and his death registered in Fermoy, thirty miles to the north of Cork. The report confirmed that:
Nothing is yet known of how he came by his death, although a request was made for a post-mortem examination.
Taunton Courier and Western Advertiser: Wednesday 11th August 1920.
I can find no further information about his death and, unusually, his Pension Record gives the date, but not the cause. Staff Sergeant Coggan died on 29th July 1920, aged 38 years old.
William Reginald Coggan’s body was brought back to England for burial. He lies at rest in St John’s Cemetery in Bridgwater, Somerset.
William James Bradbeer was born in the spring of 1888, the youngest of eight children to Alfred and Jane Bradbeer from Bridgwater in Somerset. Alfred was a carriage trimmer, fitting out the train coaches for the local railways.
Sadly, William lost both of his parents in 1910; by this point he was 22, and was working as a schoolmaster along with his older brother Alfred. Five of the Bradbeer siblings were living together by this point, along with Sidney Palfrey, a photographer, who was boarding with them.
On 27th December 1911, William married Selina Nurse, who was also from Bridgwater, and whose father was a master mariner. The couple did not have any children together.
There is little evidence of William’s life after his marriage. He was enlisted in the Royal Garrison Artillery during the war, although no details of his military service are available. The battalions provided support in key forts primarily along the south coast of England, but also in places like the Channel Isles, Malta and Sierra Leone. Without Second Lieutenant Bradbeer’s records, it is impossible to know specifically where he served, but it would seem likely that he remained in England during the war.
The last years of William’s are also shrouded in mystery; he passed away on 8th August 1920, at the age of 32. I have been unable to uncover a cause of death, but it seems likely to have been an illness, as there is nothing in the contemporary media to suggest anything unusual or untoward.
William James Bradbeer lies at rest in the Wembdon Road Cemetery in his home town of Bridgwater. Sadly, though, his grave is also lost to time, and I was unable to pinpoint its location. In death, as in his later years, William remains a mystery.
Note: The grave at the top of this page, however, is of a couple of his Bradbeer relatives, buried in the same cemetery.
Ernest Edward Hector was born in 1875, one of six children – all boys – to Thomas and Mary Hector. Thomas was a farm labourer, and this was a trade Ernest and his brothers all followed their father in.
Ernest was keen for a better life, however, and enlisted in the Somerset Light Infantry in May 1896, aged 21. After initial training and service in England, Private Hector was off to the East Indies, arriving there just after Christmas 1897.
Six years abroad followed, after which Ernest returned to England to serve another four years. He completed the 12 years of his military career in May 1908.
By this point, Ernest had married Eliza Humphries, a young lady seven years his junior, who came from his home village of North Wootton in Somerset. The couple went on to have six children and, by the time of the 1911 census, Ernest had settled his family in West Pennard, near Glastonbury, and was working as a farm labourer.
Ernest’s service during the Great War remains tantalisingly hidden. Given that he was 39 when hostilities broke out, it is unlikely that he was called up again straight away; his gravestone confirms that he was assigned to the Machine Gun Corps (Infantry), but research on his service number provides little other detail.
There is nothing in the media of the time reporting on his death or funeral either, so no concrete cause of death can be confirmed. All that is known is that Private Hector died on 9th May 1920, aged 45 years old.
Ernest Edward Hector is buried in the graveyard of St Peter’s Church in North Wootton.
Ernest George Morris was born in September 1879, one of six children to John and Eliza Morris. John was a carter for the railways, and this was a trade his son was to follow.
Ernest married Sarah Garrett in Bristol on Christmas Eve 1904, and the young couple went on to have two children, Charles and William.
Ernest’s father died in 1907, and Ernest became head of the family. He moved them in with him in Bristol, and by the 1911 census, the household consisted of Ernest, his mother Eliza, his brothers Frank and William, sister Lily and his own son William.
The census also lists Ernest as a widow; I have not been able to track down any records of when Sarah died. Their eldest boy, Charles, passed very early on, however, so this is likely why Ernest set up home with his family.
By this time, Ernest was working as a carman in the Bristol Goods Yards, and it appears that had a strong character. In September 1912, he was cautioned for “smoking whilst on duty and refusal to give an undertaking to refrain from doing so in future.” He cited his reason that the rulebook “did not prohibit men from smoking when not with a load.”
Ernest was suspended for two days, and was only allowed back to work when he promised to follow instructions in the future. This, it seemed he may not have done, as he was dismissed just three months later.
Ernest’s military service records are hard to piece together. He enlisted in the Rifle Brigade as a Gunner, going on to achieve the rank of Serjeant. He was awarded the Victory and British medals – the standard awards for men involved in the Great War.
Serjeant Morris survived the war, but there is little information for him after that. He passed away on 28th June 1920, aged 40 years old, although there is no record of how he passed. His war pension was awarded to his mother, who was acting as guardian for his son William.
Ernest George Morris lies at rest in the cemetery of his home town of Langport.
Death and Service 