Tag Archives: Driver

Commonwealth War Graves, Driver, Great War, history, illness, injury, Kent, photography, Royal Army Service Corps, story, Sussex, war

Driver Walter Colchin

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Driver Walter Colchin

Walter George Colchin was born in 1884 in Borden, Kent. His parents, Herbert and Frances, moved the family – three sons, including Walter, and a daughter – to the village of Iwade, where they ran the Woolpack Inn.

There isn’t a great deal of information about Walter’s life. He married Bertha Sparks from the neighbouring village of Milton in 1916.

Walter joined the war effort at some point after that – I have been unable to find an exact date – and enlisted in the Royal Army Service Corps, before transferring to the Agricultural Company Labour Corps.

Private Colchin was on active service in Steyning, West Sussex, when the war came to a close. On 23rd December 1918, he suffered a cerebral haemorrhage and died. He was 34 years old.

Walter Colchin is buried in the graveyard of All Saints Church in his home village of Iwade.

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

Driver Harry Austin

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Driver Harry Austin

Harry Austin was born in the small Kent village of Bobbing in 1890. One of nine children to Richard and Emma Austin, his father was the village blacksmith, a trade two of his brothers followed after leaving school. Harry, however, became a general labourer in the coal industry.

Sadly, most of Harry’s wartime service is lost to time; we know that he enlisted in the Royal Field Artillery and served as a driver. The RFA was responsible for the medium-calibre guns and howitzers deployed close to the front line; Harry’s role, therefore, was likely to have involved driving the horses to and from the sites where the guns were needed.

Again, Driver Austin’s military records are somewhat lacking when it comes to his passing. However, where they mark him as ‘dead from disease’, a contemporary newspaper in memoriam gives a little more detail.

In ever loving memory of Driver Harry Austin, RFA… who passed away November 10th 1918, in the 1st Southern General Hospital, Birmingham, from influenza following Gun Shot wounds, aged 29 years.

East Kent Gazette – Saturday 23rd November 1918.

An untimely death for Harry, but particularly poignant, given that he passed the day before the Armistice was signed.

Driver Harry Austin lies at peace in the graveyard of St Bartholomew’s Church in his home village of Bobbing, Kent.