Hubert Hext was born in Ashburton, Devon, in September 1898. He was the youngest of three children to painter and decorator William Hext and his wife, Susan.
Little information is available on Hubert’s early life, and there is also scant detail about his military career. All that can be confirmed is that he enlisted on 6th May 1914, and joined the Devonshire Regiment as a Private.
He was initially assigned to the 5th Battalion – they sailed to India in October 1914 – but at some point transferred to the 14th (Labour) Battalion – which was in France by October 1916. Sadly, it’s not possible to identify exactly where Private Hext served.
The military documents available confirm that Hubert contracted tuberculosis and was discharged from the army on medical grounds. However, one records suggests this was on 25th October 1916, while another gives the date of 25th October 1917. Either way, Private Hext’s army career was over by the middle of the conflict.
Hubert returned home, and, for a while, his trail goes cold. Sadly, the next record for him is the confirmation of his passing. He died on 11th November 1918 – Armistice Day – at the tender age of just 20 years old.
Hubert Hext was laid to rest in the graveyard of St Andrew’s Church in Ashburton, Devon.
James Valentine McDowell was born in Ashburton, Devon, on 2nd January 1865. He was one of eight children to William and Louisa McDowell. William was a labourer, and this was a trade that James also took up when he left school.
In the summer of 1884, James was brought up to the Devon Assizes in Exeter, on the charge of attempted suicide. A local newspaper reported that:
It appeared that on June 13th the prisoner, fully dressed, was seen lying at full length in the Yeo, his head resting on a stone, but the remainder of his body was under water. The stream, however, was but three feet deep and six feet wide at this particular point, so the actual danger was not very great.
A witness seeing the position of the prisoner called upon him to come out of the water. He did so. He was very drunk. On leaving the Yeo, the prisoner proceeded towards the Dart, and on his way wished the witness to bid his father and mother good bye. Arrived at the Dart the prisoner attempted to throw himself into the water, but was prevented and handed over to the police.
When in custody the prisoner said this was the second time he had been in the water: next time should be more lucky. Subsequently, however, he stated that he only went to the Yeo for a wash, and this statement he now repeated.
The jury returned a verdict of not guilty, and his Lordship, in discharging the prisoner, advised him next time he wanted a bath not to get drunk beforehand, or he might find himself in deeper water than that in which he was discovered on the present occasion.
Western Times: Saturday 26th July 1884
The same Assizes saw trials for embezzlement, horse stealing, larceny, stack-burning and endeavouring to conceal the birth of a child. The alleged perpetrator of a count of buggery was found not guilty (his alleged offence not named in the same newspaper), while a Henry Davy, 51, was sentenced to 18 months’ hard labour for indecently assaulting a 6 year old girl.
The following year found James back on track. He married local woman Mary Ellen Ellery; the couple set up home in Ashburton and went on to have seven children. The family settled into a routine – James worked as a mason’s labourer; in his spare time, he joined the 3rd Devon Militia. His and Mary’s daughters found work as wool spinners, while their sons also got into labouring work.
War came to Europe in 1914; despite his age, James wanted to play his part. He enlisted when the call came, joining the Royal Engineers as a Pioneer on 19th August 1915. Within a week he was sent to France, and this is where he stayed for the duration of the war.
Pioneer McDowell returned to England on furlough on 2nd February 1919, and was waiting to be demobbed. However, tragedy struck before that became a reality, the same newspaper picking up the story some thirty-five years later:
An Ashburton man named James McDowell, aged about 56 years, a private in the Royal Engineers Labour Battalion, who joined up in August 1915, and had been in France continuously since that time, was found drowned in the mill leat of the the River Yeo at the rear of the cottages in Kingsbridge-lane early on Saturday morning.
He left his home at Great Bridge about 8:30 on Friday night for a short time. To get to the town he had to pass along by the river, which was running very high through the recent heavy rain, and it is supposed that he must have fallen in and had been washed down to where he was found, which was a considerable distance.
He had been demobilised, and was on furlough, and every sympathy is expressed for the family on their sad loss. Dowell [sic] who was well known and was of a jovial disposition, leaves a widow and grown up family.
Western Times: Monday 24th February 1919
Later that week, a summary of the inquest was printed:
Dr EA Ellis said he found a ragged cut over deceased’s left eyebrow, but otherwise there was no sign of violence. The cut was inflicted before death. A post mortem revealed that the cause of death was drowning. His theory was that deceased fell into the river, his head coming into contact with a stone, which inflicted the wound and caused unconsciousness. The spot where the accident was supposed to have happened, he thought, was unsafe and dangerous.
…the jury returned a verdict that the deceased was found drowned, caused by accidentally falling over the wall at the top of North Street… and they wished… to call the attention of the responsible authorities to the danger at this spot, and to the unsatisfactory state of the lighting there.
Western Times: Friday 28th February 1919.
Pioneer James Valentine McDowell drowned on 21st February 1919: he was 56 years of age. His body was laid to rest in the graveyard of St Andrew’s Church in his home village.
Leonard Fish was born on 24th November 1893, one of eleven children to Arthur and Elizabeth. Arthur was a maltser (brewer) from Hertfordshire and is was in Ware that Leonard was born.
While Leonard’s older brothers followed in their father’s brewing footsteps, he worked as a farm labourer after leaving school. He wanted bigger things, however, and, on 25th February 1913, he enlisted in the Royal Navy.
Leonard’s service records show that he stood 5ft 9ins (1.75m) tall, had brown hair, blue eyes and a fresh complexion. He enlisted as a Stoker 2nd Class, and was sent to HMS Pembroke – the Royal Naval Dockyard in Chatham, Kent – for training.
Over the next four years, Stoker Fish travelled far and wide. His initial sea posting was on board the battleship HMS King Edward VII; he served on board for nearly two-and-a-half years, gaining a promotion to Stoker 1st Class in the process.
After a brief spell back in Chatham, Leonard was sent to HMS Vivid – a similar shore-based establishment in Devonport – and from there he was assigned to the newly fitted out battleship HMS Royal Oak. Within the month she was at the heart of the Battle of Jutland, and continued to protect the North Sea convoys.
Stoker Fish returned to HMS Pembroke in August 1917. The Dockyard was particularly busy that summer, and the large number of extra servicemen meant that Leonard was billeted in temporary accommodation in Chatham Drill Hall.
On the 3rd September 1917, the first night air raid carried out by the German Air Force bombarded the town, and scored a direct hit on the Drill Hall; Stoker Fish was among those killed. He was just 23 years of age.
Leonard Fish was laid to rest, along with the other victims of the Chatham Air Raid, in the Woodlands Cemetery, Gillingham.
Stoker Leonard Fish (from ancestry.co.uk)
Leonard’s older brother Frederick Fish also fought in the First World War.
Frederick was born three years before Leonard, and enlisted in the Royal West Kent Regiment in 1915. He was sent to France at the end of July, and gained the rank of Corporal.
He was killed in the fighting at the Somme on 13th July 1916. He was just 26 years of age, and left a widow, Ellen.
Corporal Frederick Fish was laid to rest in the Serre Road Cemetery No 2 in Beaumont-Hamel.
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.
Stafford Edmund Douglas was born on 4th January 1863, the second of four children to Stephen and Mary Douglas. Stafford came from a military family, his father having been a Captain in the Royal Navy. This led to a lot of travelling and, having been born in Donaghadee, County Down, he then moved to South Wales.
By the 1880s, when Stephen and Mary had set up home in Portsmouth, Stafford had started to carve out a career for himself, and was a Lieutenant in the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders, based at Edinburgh Castle.
Over the coming years, Lieutenant Douglas, who stood 5ft 8.5ins (1.74m) tall and also spoke French, travelled the world, serving in South Africa, Ceylon (Sri Lanka) and Hong Kong. By 1894 he had made Captain, and he finally retired in 1903, after nineteen years’ service.
On 29th April that year, at the age of 40, Stafford married Mary Louisa Harris. She was the daughter of an army colonel, and the couple wed in St George’s Church, Hanover Square, London. The couple set up home in Exeter, Devon, and went on to have two children – Violet and Stafford Jr.
At this point, Stafford’s trail goes cold. When war broke out in 1914, he was called back into duty, working as a Railway Transport Officer in Norwich. He continued in this role until 1919, before being stood down and returning home.
Stafford Edmund Douglas passed away on 15th February 1920, at the age of 57 years old, although no cause of death is immediately apparent. He was laid to rest in the Milton Road Cemetery in Weston-super-Mare, presumably where his family were, by this time, residing.
Gilbert Metters was born in Linkinhorne, Cornwall in March 1885, one of four children to William and Emma Metters. William was a farmer and haulier who moved his family to Chudleigh in Devon not long after Gilbert was born.
When Gilbert left school, he found work as a domestic gardener. By the time of the 1911 census, he was living with his parents, younger sister and Emma’s sister in Old Way, not far from the village centre. On 17th April 1914, William passed away, leaving Emma widowed.
When war broke out, Gilbert was one of the first from the town to sign up. He enlisted in the 8th Battalion of the Devonshire Regiment, and was soon off to Hampshire for training. Tragically, within weeks of arriving, Private Metters contracted tuberculosis, and passed away in the camp hospital. He was 29 years of age, breathing his last on 4th November 1914.
Gilbert Metters’ body was brought back to Chudleigh for burial, and was laid to rest alongside his father in the family grave.
The local newspaper reported on Gilbert’s funeral. It suggested that when enlisting “although not one of the strongest, he managed to pass the medical test.” It went on to say that:
He always assisted in every good cause in the town, and was very highly respected. He endeared himself with the officers and men of C Company.
Frederick Cleave was born in Chudleigh, Devon, early in 1899, and was one of nine children to Charles and Eva Cleave. Charles worked as a waggoner – for a grocer, according to the 1901 census, and for a stonemason in the 1911 one.
There is little specific information about Frederick’s early life, and even details of his military service are only evident from a contemporary newspaper report of his funeral:
The funeral took place at the cemetery on Tuesday afternoon of Private F Cleave of the 1st Devon Regiment, son of Mr and Mrs C Cleave of Woodway Street, who died at Fermoy Hospital, Ireland… from disease contracted on foreign service… He joined the Army in 1915, and served through the war in France, and afterwards in the Russian Expedition.
Western Times: Friday 14th January 1921
The report suggests a couple of things. Firstly, Frederick was underage when he enlisted – he would have been 16 years old. He would also have been involved in some of the fiercest fighting of the conflict: the 1st Battalion of the Devonshire Regiment fought at the Somme in 1916, Arras and Ypres in 1917, and Lys, the Somme and the Hindenburg Line in 1918.
The Russian Expedition mentioned was part of the Allied attempt to intervene after the country’s civil war – actions that were to prove unsuccessful.
Fermoy Military Hospital was part of the British Army’s barracks in the County Cork town; it is likely that Private Cleave had contracted one of the lung conditions running rampant across Europe in the immediate aftermath of the First World War – influenza, tuberculosis or pneumonia. He passed away on 4th January 1921 at the age of 21 years old.
Brought back home, Frederick Cleave lies at rest in the cemetery of his home town, Chudleigh, Devon.
William Henry Hammacott was born on 11th January 1892 and was the oldest of four children. His parents were labourer George Hammacott and his wife Ellen; both were born in Chudleigh, Devon, and this is where they raised their family.
When William left school he too found work as a labourer, but war was coming to Europe, and he was keen to play his part. Full details of his service haven’t survived, but he had enlisted in the 5th Battalion of the Devonshire Regiment by 1915, and served on home soil.
Private Hammacott survived the war and earned the Victory, British and Territorial Force Medals for his service. During his time, he contracted malaria and was discharged from the army on medical grounds on 29th March 1919.
William returned home, and his trail goes cold for the next year. It is likely that his bout of malaria left him particularly vulnerable: he passed away on 4th May 1920, having contracted pneumonia. He was just 28 years old.
William Henry Hammacott was laid to rest in Chudleigh Cemetery.
Frederick Francis Down is one of those servicemen whose life is destined to remain lost to time. Born in Chudleigh, Devon, most of the information available about his life comes from one document – his naval service record.
The document gives his date of birth as 15th November 1897 and confirms that he enlisted on 23rd November 1914. Frederick was 5ft 2ins (1.57m) tall, had a fresh complexion, brown eyes and dark brown hair.
Frederick signed up as a Private in the Royal Marine Light Infantry, and, at the time of joining up, had been working as a butcher’s boy, living in Fore Street in the village of his birth.
Private Down served at the regiment’s depot in Deal, Kent. But he was only there for a short time: he was invalided out of the service – for reasons unrecorded – on 9th June 1915.
At this point, Frederick Francis Down’s trail goes cold once again. His gravestone confirms that he died on 11th April 1916, at the age of just 18 years old. He was laid to rest in Chudleigh Cemetery.
John James Foxworthy was born in the South Devon village of East Allington in 1867. He was the middle of five children to carpenter Roger Foxworthy and his wife Ann.
When he left school, John found work on a local farm, but he had bigger plans and, in July 1887, he enlisted in the Royal Marine Light Infantry. His service records show that he stood 5ft 8ins (1.73m) tall, had dark brown hair, brown eyes and a fresh complexion.
John had a varied military career that lasted for more than two decades. During this time, he served on nine ships, and was based at HMS Vivid – the Royal Naval Dockyard in Plymouth – for significant periods of time. He began as a Private, but rose through the ranks to Corporal (in 1894) and Sergeant (in 1900). He was wounded in April 1899, when he was shot in the leg, but recovered from this and continued his career.
In 1895, John married Maria Woodley, the daughter of a railway labourer from Totnes. The couple went on to have four children, Minnie, Gladys, Alice and William.
In 1908, Sergeant Foxworthy left the Royal Marine Light Infantry after 21 years’ service. By now the family home was in Prospect Terrace, Newton Abbot, just a short walk from the town centre. The 1911 census records him as being a Royal Marine pensioner and caretaker of the Miniature Rifle Club.
When war broke out, John was called back into duty and, by September 1914, he found himself in a Royal Marine Depot in Belgium. His service overseas was fairly short, and he had returned to England by the spring. He was working as a recruiting sergeant in Northampton on 30th March 1915, when he suddenly collapsed and died. He was 47 years of age.
John James Foxworthy’s body was brought back to Devon; he lies at rest in the family grave in Newton Abbot Cemetery.
Death and Service 