William Edmund Dale was born in Worthing, West Sussex on 25th November 1886 and was the older of six children. His father, also called William, was a carman, and he and William’s mother, Eliza, brought the family up in the Sussex town.
William Jr seems to have had a number of jobs, working as a draper’s errand boy, a milkman’s assistant and a gardener. He found his true calling at the age of 12, however, when he enlisted in the Royal Navy.
Initially acting as a Boy 2nd Class, over his initial twelve years’ employ he served on eleven vessels, and rose through the ranks to Boy, Ordinary Seaman and Able Seaman.
It was while serving on HMS Blake in 1910, that he married Mary Williams. The couple went on to have two children, William, born in 1910, and Harry, born the following year. The family set up home in Portsmouth, where the sailor was based.
With his initial service complete in 1916, William’s term of duty was extended until the end of hostilities. A promotion to Leading Seaman followed, and he was assigned to HMS Attentive, part of the Dover Patrol guard.
In 1917, William was promoted again, this time to the role of Petty Officer, and was assigned to HMS Royal Sovereign, the Navy’s new battleship. He served on the vessel for the remainder of the way, and through into the summer of 1919.
It was in the last month of his service, that Petty Officer Dale fell ill. He was taken ashore, and sent to the Royal Naval Hospital in Chatham, Kent. He had contracted meningitis, and sadly succumbed to it within days of being admitted. He died on 4th August 1919, at the age of just 32 years old.
William Edmund Dale was brought back to the town of his birth; he lies at rest in a quiet corner of the Broadwater Cemetery in Worthing, West Sussex.
Alan Ladd was born in the summer of 1893, and was one of twins. His parents were plumber and gas fitter George Ladd and his wife Mary Ann, who was a midwife. The couple had eight children altogether, of whom Alan and his twin Arthur were the youngest.
George had been born in Exeter, Devon, and Mary Ann in Somerset, which is where they initially based their family. By 1887, however, they had moved to Berkshire, and were living in Knowl Hill, near Maidenhead, when their youngest four children were born.
The 1911 census found the family living in Dunster, Somerset, where everyone seemed to be bringing in a wage. George and Mary Ann had four of their children living with them, who were employed as an engine driver, grocer, baker’s apprentice and, in Alan’s case, a tailor’s apprentice.
War broke out in 1914, and, in November 1915, Alan enlisted. He joined the Royal Army Service Corps as a Private, and his enlistment papers showed he stood 5ft 5ins (1.65m) tall, and weighed in at 130lbs (59kg). He was stationed at the Corps’ Remount Department in Swaythling, Southampton and thus his military service was completed on the Home Front.
Shortly after enlisting, on 16th April 1916, Alan married Ada Westlake. She lived in the village of Long Sutton, near Langport in Somerset, and the couple married at the Wesleyan Methodist Chapel in Somerton. They do not appear to have gone on to have any children.
Further details of Private Ladd’s life are scant. What can be determined is that he was admitted to Netley Hospital in Southampton on 11th October 1918, having had symptoms of pneumonia for a few days. Sadly, his condition worsened, and Alan passed away just three days later, on 14th October 1918. He was just 25 years of age.
Alan Ladd was brought back to Long Sutton for burial. The war may have led him and Ada to adopt more of a Quaker way of life, as he lies at rest in the Friends Burial Ground on the outskirts of the town.
Sidney Ford was born in Kent in 1896, the son of Stephen John Ford and his second wife, Elizabeth Ann (née Underdown). The couple had four children – Frederick, Sidney, Ethel and Alice – although it seems that Elizabeth brought them up almost singlehandedly. Sidney’s military records gives his father’s name, although simply notes that he was an imbecile, in the stark way that only Edwardian officials could.
Sadly, little of Sidney’s early life remains documented. By the time war broke out, he was working as a farm labourer in Yalding, close to where he was born. He enlisted at the end of October 1914, joining the Queen’s Own (Royal West Kent Regiment), and was assigned to the 8th (Service) Battalion as a Private.
Joining up in Maidstone, by the end of the year, Private Ford’s battalion was soon billeted in Worthing, West Sussex. Tragically, his service was destined to be a short one, and he passed away after only a month in the town.
The first death from the Red Cross Hospital, Cecil’s, at West Worthing, had to be recorded. Since it has been opened there have been a large number of cases, and many of them have been of a serious nature, but happily all except the one under notice have made progress, thanks to the skill of the Medical Officers and Nursing Staff of the institution.
The deceased in this instance was a Private of the Eighth Battalion of the West Kent Regiment, now stationed locally. His name was Sidney Ford, and he was twenty-five years of age. He died on Friday, and at the funeral, which took place on Monday, full Military honours were accorded him.
Colonel Vansittart (who commands the Eighth Battalion) and Major Bock-Hollinshead attended, as also did other members of the Staff of the Hospital. A large number of the public were also at the Cemetery to witness the last rites, the progress of so long and so imposing a procession through the streets attracting considerable attention.
Worthing Gazette: Wednesday 20th January 1915
Private Ford has died on 15th January 1915, and was actually just 20 years of age, not 25, as had been reported. The Worthing Gazette does not give no mention to Sidney’s family, so it can only be assumed that they were unable to make the journey from Kent to the funeral. I have been unable to uncover details of the cause of his death, but, given that there is no mention of the cause in the newspaper, it is likely to have been following an illness than anything more sensational or unusual.
Sidney Ford lies at rest in the Broadwater Cemetery in Worthing, one of the first in the town to have passed because of the Great War.
Sidney’s older brother, Frederick, was also involved in the Great War. While there is little specific information about his service, it is evident that he was a Private in the Duke of Wellington’s (West Riding Regiment).
Unlike his younger brother, Frederick did see military action, but list his life on the Western Front on 4th November 1915, ten months after Sidney had passed in Worthing.
Frederick lies at rest in the Royal Irish Rifles Graveyard in Laventie, in Northern France.
Charles Frederick Clarke was born on the 14th April 1869 to James and Jane Clarke. James was born in Suffolk, but moved to London, where he found work as a watchman (guarding the city streets at night). Jane was from Essex, and the couple went on to have five children, of whom Charles was the middle child.
Charles was set on a life of adventure, joining the Royal Navy in 1887, for a period of twelve years. During this time, he served on eleven vessels, working his way up through the ranks from Boy to Ordinary Seaman to Able Seaman, Leading Seaman and eventually Petty Officer.
In October 1895, he married Lydia Rogers, a sailor’s daughter from Portsmouth. The couple would go on to have nine children, eventually settling in Sussex.
When his naval service ended in 1899, Charles enlisted again. Within six years, he had achieved the rank of Chief Petty Officer, and in March 1909, after 22 years’ service, retired from active duty. He was obviously well respected, however, and was selected to serve on the staff of the Royal Naval Recruiting Office in Portsmouth. His service records suggest that he resigned from this role on 14th April 1914.
It seems that Chief Petty Office Clarke took on a role on the vessel HMS Zaria. This was a ship that was requisitioned by the Royal Navy, which acted as a patrol ship, guarding the coastal waters around the UK. While details are scant, Charles certainly served on board for a couple of years, and he died on board, from causes undisclosed, on 16th December 1916, at the age of 47 years old.
Brought back to West Sussex, Charles Frederick Clarke was laid to rest in the Broadwater Cemetery in Worthing. This was where Lydia was now living; she was buried in the same grave, when she passed away eight years after her husband.
Edgar Godden was born in the summer of 1892, one of eight children to John and Alice Godden. John came from Littlehampton, and Alice from Worthing, and this is where they raised their family.
John was a bricklayer, and it was this trade that Edgar went into when he left school. War was coming to Europe, however, and, within weeks of the conflict breaking out, he had volunteered his services.
Edgar joined the Royal Sussex Regiment, and was assigned to the 7th (Service) Battalion. Details of his military service are a little sketchy, but a newspaper article, written after his death, gives a hint about what happened to him.
Mr Edgar Godden… who was twenty-five years of age and leave a widow and a little child, enlisted on the 1st September 1914, and was wounded in the arm in September of the following year. In October 1916 he was blown up and buried by an enemy mine. Last February he was taken out of the trenches and sent to a hospital in France, and last April he came home to England and had an arm amputated. Since his discharge from the Seventh Royal Sussex Regiment, he had been a member of the staff of the Post Office, and was known as “The One-armed Postman”.
Worthing Gazette: Wednesday 10th January 1918.
In the autumn of 1916, and recovering from his injuries Lance Corporal Godden married Emily Owers. They lived with John and Alice, but I have been unable to find details of the child mentioned in the newspaper report.
It seems that his injuries had left Edgar in a weakened state, and, after a ‘short and painful illness’ [Worthing Gazette: 2nd January 1918], he passed away on 22nd December 1917. He was just 25 years of age.
Edgar Godden was laid to rest, finally at peace, in the Broadwater Cemetery in his home town of Worthing, West Sussex.
The newspaper report above gave a little more information about a couple of Edgar’s siblings.
Mr & Mrs [John] Godden had one son killed in action in November 1916; and still another – the eldest – is now in France, as a member of the Royal Engineers.
Worthing Gazette: Wednesday 10th January 1918
Edgar’s oldest brother – also called John – survived the war, but it was his younger brother, Charles, who was killed in action.
A Corporal in the 11th Battalion of the Royal Sussex Regiment, Charles was caught up in the Battle of the Somme. It was while fighting in the Battle of the Ancre on 13th November 1916, that he was killed. He is remembered at the Thiepval Memorial in Northern France, and is also commemorated on Edgar’s own headstone.
One last aside to Edgar’s story is his address in the last few years of his life. John and Alice were living in Worthing, specifically at a house called “Chiswick” in Tarring Road, to the west of the town.
Coincidentally, when researching another soldier, Private Ernest Parsons, this turns out to be the address where he also died, just ten months later on 4th October 1918. There is no apparent other link between the two men.
Ernest Charles Parsons was born in 1881, and was one of six children to bricklayer Robert Parsons and his wife Mary Ann. Robert was a labourer and bricklayer from Watford, while Mary Ann was born in Arundel, West Sussex. The couple moved to where his work was, having their first children in Hertfordshire and Sussex They finally settled in London, which was where Ernest was born.
Where he first left school, Ernest worked as a painter, but soon found a career as a postman., something he would continue to do through to the outbreak of war.
Ernest married Frances Olive Eynott on 28th February 1904; they went on to have a daughter, Doris, the following year. It seems, however, that their marriage was destined to be a short one; Frances passed away within a couple of years.
With a daughter to raise and a living to earn, Ernest married again. Elizabeth Kate Dew was born in Fulham in 1883, and the couple married in the spring of 1907. Again, however, their happiness was to be short; Elizabeth died eighteen months later.
Widowed twice, and with Doris now a toddler, Ernest moved back in with his parents in Chiswick. He continued his work as a postman, but alongside this had been an active volunteer in the London Regiment (Post Office Rifles) since early 1908.
Rifleman Parsons’ initial year’s service was extended and extended and, by the time of the outbreak of the First World War, had been serving for some six years.
By 1914, Ernest had found love for a third time, and married Lilian Frances Cromie on 25th March that year. With war imminent, his time was take up more with military duties; while part of the territorial force, Rifleman Parsons had been officially mobilised.
The sudden intermingling of men from different parts of the country in small, packed training camps made the perfect environment for illness and disease to circulate. Ernest had initially contracted bronchitis while on service in 1912; this had dogged him intermittently oved the next few years until, in March 1915, it was serious enough for the Medical Examination Board to declare him unfit for military service.
Ernest moved his family to Worthing, in West Sussex, presumably as the air was fresher there than in the bustling capital. He may also had had family in the area, as his mother had been born just up the road in Arundel. Sadly, though, it seems that his health was not to recover sufficiently, and he passed away on 4th October 1918, at the age of 37.
Ernest Charles Parsons was buried in the Broadwater Cemetery in the town, not far from where his widow and daughter were then living.
Coincidentally, when researching another soldier, Lance Corporal Edgar Godden, this turns out to be the address where he also died, just ten months earlier on 22nd December 1917. There is no apparent other link between the two men.
Sidney William Alner was born in Shaftesbury, Dorset, in March 1899, one of eleven children to Sidney and Ellen Alner. Sidney Sr was a grocer’s porter, and the family lived on the celebrated Gold Hill in the town.
War was to come when Sidney Jr was only young – he had just turned 15 when it broke out. He saw his older brothers go off to war and was obviously keen to do his bit as well. Until he was old enough, however, he worked as an errand boy for his father’s employers, Stratton Sons and Mead.
His time would come, of course, although dates for Sidney’s enlistment are not clear. A contemporary newspaper record confirms that he arrived in France in January 1918, so it is likely that Private Alner joined up at some point during the previous year.
He joined the Hampshire Regiment, and was assigned to the 1st Battalion. Heavily involved during most of the conflict, the battalion was seen as key to the Final Advance of the autumn of 1918. Private Alner was caught up in the fight to break the Hindenburg Line, fighting on the River Selle and capturing the town of Monchaux.
It was while his battalion was advancing on the village of Préseau on 2nd November, that Private Alner was injured. Shot in the arm, he was evacuated back to England, and admitted to the Cambridge Military Hospital in Aldershot. He would have survived his injuries, had pneumonia not set in, and it was to this that he would succumb on 19th November. He was just 19 years old.
Sidney William Alner’s body was brought back to Dorset. He lies at rest in the Holy Trinity Churchyard in Somerset, within walking distance of his family’s home.
Sidney was the second member of the Alner family to die as a result of the Great War.
His older brother Harry, who had become a chauffeur and went to live in London, joined the Royal Army Service Corps in 1915. Private H Alner had served three years in France when he was killed on the front line just three weeks before his brother. He was 32 years old, and left a widow and two children.
When researching Sidney Alner in newspaper articles, an interesting report surfaced.
An unfortunate accident has happened to a little girl, not quite four years old, the daughter of Sidney Alner, who resides in Gold Hill. Heals’ steam hobby horses visited the town on Friday and Saturday in last week, and on the evening of the former day, Alner took his little girl for a ride on the horses.
Whilst they were in motion, the bolt that kept the horse on which Alner sat with his child attached to the connecting rod came out, and he and the little girl were precipitated to the ground.
Alner escaped without injury, but his daughter had one of her legs fractured above the knee. She was taken home, and Dr Evans set the injured limb. Later in the evening she was removed to the Westminster Cottage Hospital.
Salisbury and Winchester Journal: Saturday 31st October 1891
This Sidney Alner was Private Alner’s father, and the daughter would have been his older sister Sarah. Nothing more is reported of the incident, and Sarah went on to live until 1945, when she was 57 years old.
Charles Edward Nesbit Clarke was born in December 1884, the son of Ralph Clarke. Sadly, there is little documentation to flesh out his early life. He had at least one sibling, a sister called Nellie, and was born in London, possibly in Hampstead.
Charles seemed to have been mechanically minded; when he left school, he found work with a motor vehicle fitter, before going on to get employment as an electrical engineer.
He met a woman called Elizabeth Bertha Gould, and the couple married in Islington in November 1908. Four years later, the couple had a child, Edward. The boy’s baptism record shows that the family were living in the St John’s Road Workhouse in Islington, so things seemed to have been really tough for them. (There are no other workhouse records available, so it may be that it was a temporary residence, while Edward was born, but this cannot be confirmed either way.)
The Great War broke out, and Charles enlisted straight away. He had found employment as aforeman fitter by this point, and joined the Army Service Corps, in the Motor Transport Division. He was sent to France a week later, as part of the British Expeditionary Force, and served there for seven months.
When he returned to England, having gained the 1914 Star and the British and Victory Medals for his service, he was assigned to the military camp at Burnham-on-Sea, Somerset.
Five months later, a local newspaper picked up the sorry story of what happened next.
At Weston-super-Mare Hospital… Dr S Craddock held an inquest on the body of Staff Sergeant Major Charles Clark [sic], Army Service Corps, who was admitted to that institution suffering from a mortal and self-inflicted wound received at the Burnham military camp on Sunday morning.
Captain Budibent deposed that at the time the deceased was detained in camp as the result of having been absent from duty for four days without leave. On hearing of his return, witness (who liked the man and recognised his great value, having served with him in France) went to the tent to see him. Deceased was very upset, and in reply to a question said “I can’t account for staying away; I must have been mad.” Witness tried to cheer him up, reminding him that is was not “a hanging matter”, to which Clark replied “No, sir, I wish it was.” When they were in France together Clark confided to witness that a girl who once lived with him desired him to marry her on his returning from the Front, but he stated that he could not do so, as he loved another girl. As he was depressed, witness advised him on returning home to see the girl who considered she had a claim upon him, and, if it were a matter of money, to settle it, and then marry the other girl. On later returning to the Front from England, deceased said his troubles were over, that he had married the other girl, and that he could now do his work with a good heart. Witness, however, believed other troubles had arisen.
Sergeant Belt, ASC, said he had slept in the same tent with the deceased. Clark had a good night, but next morning became very depressed over the fact that half the Company were leaving the came for another destination, and would be losing close friends. He remarked “The last hour has been the worst in my life.” Later, when outside the tent, witness heard a rifle shot and, rushing in, found Clark lying in bed with a rifle wound in his chest. Deceased admitted that he had fired the rifle himself. Death occurred in Weston Hospital, whither he was removed the same night. The medical evidence revealed terrible internal injuries, the bullet having practically severed deceased’s liver.
The jury returned a verdict that Clark committed suicide while temporarily insane.
Taunton Courier & Western Advertiser: Wednesday 18th August 1915
The report, particularly Captain Budibent’s comments, raises some questions. By the time of the First World War, Charles was married to Bertha. There is no record of him having married anyone else, so where the girl he loved, and the other who loved him came into it, it is impossible to say.
Sergeant Major Clarke had taken his own life at the age of just 31 years old. Bertha and their son were living in Chatham, Kent, at the time, and it seems likely that the cost of moving him closer to home may have ruled that out.
Charles Edward Nesbit Clarke’s body was buried instead in the Milton Cemetery in Weston-super-Mare.
John Frederick Dyer was born in Crediton, Devon, on 3rd July 1864. He was one of twelve children to William Dyer, a shoemaker, and his wife Sarah.
When he left school, John initially found work as a tanner – presumably helping with his father’s business. He soon moved on from this, however, and worked as a labourer and then a stone mason.
In 1888, aged 24, he married a woman called Emily; they went on to have four children. By the time of the 1901 census, John was a fully fledged mason, and the family had moved to Weston-super-Mare in Somerset.
From this point in, there is little information available relating to John’s life. The 1911 census records him as living in the centre of Weston-super-Mare, in a six-room house with his wife, two of his children and his niece.
Storm clouds were on the horizon in Europe, but not much documentation records his military service. He was 50 years old when war was declared, and he was old enough to be exempt from volunteering or conscription. However, he did put his name forward, and enlisted at some point at the beginning of 1915.
Private Dyer joined the 4th Battalion of the Somerset Light Infantry. This was a primarily territorial force, that served in India and the Middle East, although there is no confirmation that he was anywhere outside of the UK during his time in the army.
In fact, Private Dyer’s service was not destined to be a long one; the next available record shows that he died on 9th July 1915 at the 2nd Southern General Hospital in Bristol. He had just turned 51 years old. Sadly, no details of the cause of death exist.
John Frederick Dyer’s body was brought back to Somerset for burial. He lies at rest in the Milton Road Cemetery in his adopted home town of Weston-super-Mare.
William Alister Flower was born in 1887, one of five children to Joseph and Annie Flower. Joseph was a platelayer for the local railway, and brought the family up in Weston-super-Mare, in his home county of Somerset.
When he left school, William worked as an errand boy for a local greengrocer; he stuck with it, and, by the time of the 1911 census, he was employed as a van driver for the grocer.
War was on the horizon and, while William enlisted in the army, it is difficult to get a complete handle on his military service. There are a number of servicemen with similar names, but the documentation that is available is not easy to directly connect them with the gravestone in the Weston-super-Mare cemetery.
What is clear is that William enlisted as a Private in the Army Service Corps at some point before May 1918. He was assigned to the Motor Transport division (this was likely on the back of his van-driving experience). His time seems to have been spent on home soil, although he was awarded both the Victory and British Medals for his service.
At some point, he had married a woman called Mabel. Exact details again are unclear – ancestry.com confirms the marriage of a William Flower and Mabel Richardson in December 1909, but as this took place in Northamptonshire, it is unlikely to be the Somerset Flowers researched here.
Details of Private Flower’s passing are also scarce. He died on 8th November 1918, in the Military Hospital in Croydon, Surrey, but the is no information as to the cause of his death. He was just 31 years old.
William Alister Flower’s body was brought back to Somerset; he lies at rest in the family grave, in the Milton Cemetery of his home town.
While I was researching William Flower, I was taken by the note of the accidental death of the first name on the family grave.
Edward Thomas Flower was two years William’s senior who, after leaving school, had gone on to be an errand boy for a local butcher.
Edward had decided to follow in his father’s footsteps and join the railways, leaving his home town in 1905 to work in Cornwall. After initially working as an engine cleaner, he progressed to be a fireman, helping to stoke the engine with coal. The local newspaper of the time picked up the story of the accident.
At the moment of the accident, a goods train was standing in the Redruth station, shunting having been temporarily suspended to admit the passage of the down motor rail car.
It appears that the flap of one of the cattle trucks in the goods train… had been allowed to remain down, and the folding doors above it had been insecurely fastened, with the result that as the motor rail car ran into the station the doors of the truck suddenly flew open outward and one of them struck deceased on the side of the face and head, inflicting terrible injuries.
There was a very extensive fracture of the skull, the whole of the left side of the face was driven in and there was also a formidable wound at the back of the head, death occurring within a few moments.
It appears that the rail motor was not proceeding at a greater rate than some five or six miles an hour, according to the statement made at the inquest by the driver, and the latter noticed that when the doors of the goods truck swung open they struck one of the handles on the fore part of the car. He applied the brake immediately, but did not know that Flower had been struck until afterwards.
Weston Mercury: Saturday 7th October 1905
The inquest found that there had been some neglect on the part of the porter and guard in not ensuring that the goods truck’s doors had been secured, and it seems that this was something that had been highlighted previously.
Edward had shortly been due to marry, leaving a fiancée, as well as a family, bereft. He was just 20 years old.
His body was brought back to Weston-super-Mare, and was the first to be buried in the family grave.
Death and Service 