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Commonwealth War Graves, Corporal, Driver, Great War, history, illness, India, Ireland, Kent, Lance Corporal, Mesopotamia, photography, Private, Royal Engineers, Royal Navy, Stoker, story, Wales, war

Stoker 1st Class Patrick Tynan

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Stoker 1st Class Patrick Tynan

Patrick Tynan was born in Roscrea, Southern Ireland, on 9th June 1893. He was the eldest of four children to John and Anne Tynan, but sadly, there is no further information available for his early years.

Patrick’s story really picks up on 14th December 1915, when he joined the Royal Engineers as a Private. His service record states that he was living in Bangor, Gwynedd, and that he was a stall keeper at a fairground – a subsequent document noted his trade as a showman. He was noted to be 5ft 8ins (1.72m) tall, weighed 151lbs (68.5kg), and had numerous scars on his back.

Private Tynan did not stay in the UK for long. Assigned the new role of Driver, he was attached to the GHQ Signal Company and sailed from Devonport on 30th June 1916, bound for Mesopotamia. Arriving in Margil – the port connected to Basra – he was based here for more than a year, before moving north to Baghdad.

By this time, Patrick had risen to the rank of Lance Corporal, and was obviously a trustworthy member of the company. Towards the end of 1917, he had again been promoted, this time to Corporal.

During his time in modern day Iraq, Patrick was admitted to hospital a handful of times; there is little information on the conditions he suffered, but none appear to have been life threatening, as they were only for short periods. It’s also interesting to find that his service records confirm a month’s leave in May 1918, spent in India.

When the war came to a close, Corporal Tynan was still in the Middle East. Ready to be demobbed, his company moved to India and boarded the SS Chupra in Calcutta on 26th February 1919, bound for home.

Back in the UK, however, Patrick was not ready to give up the formal military life. Having returned to Gillingham in Kent, where the Royal Engineers were based, he initially found work as a tram conductor, but soon signed up for a five year term with the Royal Navy as a stoker.

He was based on HMS Pembroke II, the shore-based establishment at Chatham Dockyard, but sadly, his time in the navy was to be a short one. Admitted to the Royal Naval Hospital in the town with pneumonia, he passed away form the condition on 1st October 1919. He was just 26 years old.

Patrick Tynan was laid to rest in the Woodlands Cemetery in Gillingham. He had a short but full life, something his modest gravestone doesn’t begin to hint at.

Commonwealth War Graves, Driver, Great War, history, illness, Norfolk, photography, Royal Field Artillery, Somerset, story, war

Driver Alfred Fear

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Driver Alfred Fear

Alfred Fear was born towards the end of 1898, the youngest of nine children to Charles and Eliza Fear. Charles was a mason from Weston-super-Mare in Somerset, who raised his family in the town of his birth.

Sadly, given his youth, there is little documented about Alfred’s early life. He was still at school at the time of the 1911 census and, while he would have found some sort of employment after leaving, there is no record of what that would have been.

Alfred’s military service records are also sparse. He enlisted in the Royal Field Artillery and was assigned the role of Driver in the 321st Brigade. While dates cannot be confirmed, he would have enlisted before the spring of 1918.

The next two documents relating to Driver Fear are his Pension Ledger record and the Army Register of Personal Effects. These confirms that he passed away on 22nd October 1918 at the Norfolk War Hospital. The cause of death given was infirmation of the brain, (or possibly inflammation of the brain). He was just 20 years old.

Alfred Fear’s body was brought back to Weston-super-Mare for burial. He lies at rest in the town’s Milton Cemetery.

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

Gunner Walter Coleman

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Gunner Walter Coleman

Walter Coleman was born in the spring of 1887, one of seven children to James and Emily Coleman. James was a hairdresser and the family lives in the Somerset town of Taunton.

Walter didn’t follow his father’s trade; instead, after a spell working at a collar factory when he left school, he was soon employed as a groom.

On Christmas Day 1910, he married Kate Norris, and the couple set up in a two-up, two-down in the middle of the town.

War was on the horizon, however, and when it broke out, Walter signed up straight away. He joined the 72nd Brigade of the Royal Field Artillery as a Driver and trained at the Bulford Camp on Salisbury Plain. It was while he was here on 10th April 1915 that he had an accident and fell off his horse. Sadly, Driver Coleman fractured his skull and died of his injuries that day. He was just 28 years old.

Walter Coleman lies at rest in the St James’ Cemetery in his home town of Taunton.

Walter Coleman (from findagrave.com)

Walter’s older brother Henry James Coleman also served in the Great War. Posted to France as part of the Labour Corps, he died of wounds on 12th April 1918. He was 33 years old, and left behind a widow and four children. He is buried at the Longuenesse Souvenir Cemetery in France.

Commonwealth War Graves, Driver, Great War, history, India, injury, photography, Royal Field Artillery, Somerset, story, unknown, war

Driver Frederick Virgin

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Driver Frederick Virgin

Frederick Henry Virgin was born in 1888, the second eldest of ten children. His parents were carter Thomas Virgin and his wife, Ellen, and the family lived in Taunton, Somerset.

Frederick craved adventure and this came in the form of military service. In August 1906, he enlisted in the Royal Field Artillery, and was assigned as a driver. Initially serving at home, he was shipped to India for four years, returning to England in December 1912.

Driver Virgin met and married Alice Shattock in April 1914, but had been shipped off to France within months, when war broke out. He served overseas for eighteen months, before transferring back to England again. By this point he was suffering with sciatica, and this is what saw him assigned lighter duties in the Reserve Brigade on the home front.

Alice fell pregnant, and the couple had a little boy in February 1917; sadly, his life was brief, and he passed away at the age of just two days. One can only imagine the impact this had on his parents.

Frederick’s health issues continued to be a problem, and he was medically discharged from the army later that year. While the sciatica was not solely attributed to his military service, his discharge report confirmed that his time in the army contributed to the issue. Driver Virgin’s time with the Royal Field Artillery came to an end in December 1917.

Sadly, it is at this point that Frederick’s trail goes cold. His records confirm that he passed away nearly a year later, on 26th November 1918, but there is no record as to the cause of his death. He was 30 years of age.

Frederick Henry Virgin lies at rest in St Mary’s Cemetery in his home town of Taunton, Somerset.

Australia, Australian Army Medical Corps, Commonwealth War Graves, Devon, Driver, Great War, history, illness, Lance Corporal, photography, Somerset, story, war, Wiltshire

Driver Ernest Smith

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Driver Ernest Smith

Ernest John Smith was born in 1883, one of seven children to John Smith and his wife Sarah Jane. John was a coal merchant, and the family lived in the Somerset town of Bruton. When Ernest initially left school, he worked as a farm labourer, but at some point, a sense of adventure caught him, and he emigrated to Australia. Sadly, details of his travels are not available, but he left England at some point before 1915.

When war broke out, however, he was still keen to do his bit. He was living in Queensland when he enlisted on 26th October 1915, and was assigned to the Australian Army Medical Corps.

Driver Smith’s battalion left Australia for Europe in March 1916, and served in France for the duration. He was dogged by ill health, catching pleurisy a couple of times, and had a number of fibromas operated on.

In October 1918, he was appointed Lance Corporal, but was shipped back to England later that year with ongoing fibroma issues. He was admitted to Torquay Hospital as dangerously ill in December of that year, and spent most of the next nine months in hospital, initially in Torquay, but then when he was able to be moved, he was transferred to the 1st Australian General Hospital near Warminster.

Sadly, the cysts Driver Smith has developing were malignant, and he passed away on 8th October 1919. He was just 36 years old.

Ernest John Smith was brought back to his home town for burial, and lies at rest in the graveyard of St Mary’s Church in Bruton.

Commonwealth War Graves, Great War, history, photography, Private, Royal Army Service Corps, Somerset, story, unknown, war

Driver Ernest Wood

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Driver Ernest Wood

Ernest James Wood was born in 1891, one of ten children to Alfred and Charlotte Wood. Alfred was a carpenter and machinist for a timber merchant, and, by the time of Ernest’s birth the family lived in Bridgwater, Somerset.

When hostilities broke out, Ernest was quick to enlist. He joined the Royal Army Service Corps in September 1914. Driver Wood was assigned to the Horse Transport Depot Company at Park Royal in London, and there is a note of him being injured on 29th July 1916. Sadly, little else of his military service remains.

In January 1916, Ernest married Hilda Williams. She was the same age as her new husband, and was the daughter of Thomas and Elizabeth, who were also from Bridgwater.

The trail of Driver Wood goes a little cold after that. He was demobbed om 6th January 1919 and on the release form declared that he was not medically unfit as a result of his military service.

Frustratingly, the trail goes totally cold at that point. All we know for certain is that Ernest died on 2nd March 1919, two months after leaving the army. There a no records confirming a cause of death but, as he does not appear in any contemporary newspapers, it is likely that the cause was not unusual; perhaps one of the respiratory conditions going around at the time, such as influenza or pneumonia. Whatever the cause, Ernest was just 28 years old when he died (his headstone is based on an incorrect date of birth).

Ernest James Wood lies at peace in the St John’s Cemetery in his home town of Bridgwater, in Somerset.

Commonwealth War Graves, Driver, Great War, history, illness, photography, Royal Army Service Corps, Somerset, story, war

Driver Stanley Pearce

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Driver Stanley Pearce

Stanley Arthur Robert Pearce was born in September 1895, the fourth of five children to Edwin and Rosetta Pearce from Bridgwater, Somerset. Edwin was a painter and sign-writer, and it was in the creative trades that his children followed.

Stanley’s eldest brother Clifford became a gardener; his next oldest Edwin Jr was a mason’s labourer; while his older sister Dorothy became a cardboard box maker. By the time of the 1911 census, when Stanley was 16, he was listed as a painter’s errand boy, presumably helping out his father.

War was on the horizon, and Stanley was keen to do his bit. In October 1914, he enlisted, becoming a Driver in the Royal Army Service Corps. Assigned to the 662nd Heavy Transport Company, he was based in London. There was still time for visits home, however, and the local Bridgwater newspaper reported on an ASC football match in which Driver Pearce was involved in October 1915.

By this time, Stanley had met Flossie Vickery, from nearby North Petherton. The couple married the following year, and had two children, Ada and Geoffrey.

In 1916, Driver Pearce’s battalion was shipped off to Salonica in Greece, as part of the British Expeditionary Force in the Balkans. While there, he contracted malaria and dysentery, and was evacuated back to England for treatment in September 1918.

Driver Pearce recovered well enough to enjoy a month’s recuperation, but fell ill again, with a recurrence of malaria, combined with influenza and pneumonia. He was admitted to the Brook War Hospital in South East London, but sadly not recover, and passed away on 10th November 1918, a day before the Armistice was signed. He was just 23 years old.

Stanley Arthur Robert Pearce lies at rest in the Wembdon Road Cemetery in his home town of Bridgwater.

Stanley’s older sister Dorothy – the cardboard box maker – contracted influenza around the same time as her brother and, tragically, died just five days after him. The siblings were buried in a joint funeral at the cemetery.

Commonwealth War Graves, Driver, Great War, history, illness, photography, Royal Field Artillery, Royal Horse Artillery, Somerset, story, war

Driver Thomas Humphries

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Driver Thomas Humphries

Thomas George Edward Humphries was born in November 1897, one of six children to George and Annie Humphries, from North Wootton in Somerset. George was a farm labourer, and had been married to his wife for 19 years before her untimely death in at the age of 40.

When war came, Thomas was just 16 years old. He enlisted quickly, though, joining the Royal Horse Artillery as early as the summer of 1915. Driver Humphries joined the 120 Brigade of the Royal Field Artillery, which was one of the many Howitzer brigades moving the large long-barrelled field guns along the front line.

Given the high use of horses during the way, and that Thomas was a Driver, it is likely that his role would have been guiding the animals in his care – this may also account for why his gravestone gives his troop as the Royal Horse Artillery.

Little remains of Thomas’ service records; he was awarded the Victory and British Medals and well as the 1915 Star, so would have been in the thick of the fighting and seen action on the Western Front.

When it comes to his passing, again details are scant. His pension records simply state that he died of ‘disease’, and he passed in the military hospital in Southwark, South London. Again, given when he died and the lack of any contemporary media report on his passing, it seems likely that the cause was a lung condition – influenza, pneumonia or tuberculosis – but that is a presumption on my part,

Whatever the cause, Driver Humphries died on 8th April 1919, aged just 21 years old.

Thomas George Edward Humphries lies at rest in the quiet graveyard of St Peter’s Church in his home village of North Wootton.

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

Driver Sidney Hoskins

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Driver Sidney Hoskins

Sidney Victor Hoskins was born in February 1892, one of eleven children to Sidney and Elizabeth Hoskins from Shepton Mallet in Somerset. Sidney Sr worked as a quarryman and labourer in local factories.

Sidney was keen to make a life for himself, enlisting in the army in 1909. He served two years as a driver for the Royal Engineers, before being put on the reserve list. By the time of the 1911 census, he was listed as a packer on the railway. In November of that year, Sidney married Ada Lambert, also of Shepton Mallet.

While working on the line in April 1913, Sidney had an accident, suffering a fractured skull. He wasn’t able to carry out any hard labour form that point.

War broke out and Sidney was remobilised; just a month after Ada gave birth to their one and only child, a daughter they named Ada.

New baby notwithstanding, Driver Hoskins was shipped to France as part of the British Expeditionary Force. After two months he was sent down the line after suffering a fit, and was subsequently treated for pleurisy in Nantes. In November 1914, he returned to England and was ultimately discharged on medical grounds in February 1915.

During his time in France, he had also developed tuberculosis, and eventually spent three months in a sanitorium in Taunton, Somerset, to recover.

The condition continued to haunt Sidney, however, and he succumbed to the illness on 5th November 1917. He was 25 years of age.

Sidney Victor Hoskins lies at rest in the cemetery of his home town of Shepton Mallet.

Sidney’s younger brother, William Napier Hoskins, was also involved in the Great War. He had enlisted in the Somerset Light Infantry, and was based in India. Injured in fighting in the Persian Gulf, he was invalided back to India to recover. He was well enough to return to the fray, and was shipped to Mesopotamia, where he was injured again. He died of his wounds in Kut-al Amarah, Iraq, in 1915, aged just 20 years old.

The boys’ older brother Charles had also died in 1895, aged just six years old. While Sidney Sr and Elizabeth had had a family of eight girls, they were to outlive all three of their sons.

Commonwealth War Graves, Cumbria, Driver, Great War, history, photography, Royal Army Service Corps, Sergeant, Somerset, story, war

Sergeant Joseph Wilkinson

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Sergeant Joseph Wilkinson

Joseph Wilkinson was born in the village of Greystoke, Cumbria in the summer of 1888. His parents were John and Margaret Wilkinson, and he had two siblings, also called John and Margaret. Joseph’s father worked as a railway signalman, and the industry employed a large number of people in the village.

Joseph’s life was to take a different turn, however, and it was likely the railway that took him there. He next appears on the 1911 census, boarding in a house in the village of Wedmore in Somerset. At 23 years old, he is listed as a Solicitor’s Cashier.

As with so many other fallen men and women, Joseph’s trail goes cold. There is not enough evidence to detail his military career – he joined the Royal Army Service Corps as a Driver and was promoted to Sergeant.

The UK Army Register of Soldiers’ Effects show that he was married to a woman called Ethel, although there are no records of their wedding. The document also confirms that he died at the Union Hospital in Winchester, Hampshire on 17th October 1918, but there is no cause of death given. He was 31 years old.

“He did his duty” says his impressive gravestone, but it is tragic that that duty is lost to time.

Sergeant Joseph Wilkinson lies at rest in the churchyard of St Mary’s in Wedmore, the Somerset village that came to be his home.