Tag Archives: family

Commonwealth War Graves, Corporal, Great War, history, illness, Kent, Lance Corporal, photography, Royal Engineers, Sapper, story, war

Corporal Richard Langley

Leave a comment
Corporal Richard Langley

Richard Frederick Langley was born in January 1897 in Chatham, Kent. He was one of seven children to Albert Langley, who was a bricklayer, and his wife, Elizabeth.

Richard enlisted almost as soon as he was able to. His papers, dated 18th October 1914, show that he was 17 years and 10 months old, as was working as an apprentice boilermaker. He was assigned to the Royal Engineers.

Sapper Langley’s war service was spent in England. Initially based in Kent, he was promoted to Acting Lance Corporal in October 1915. Transferring to the Royal Engineers Anti Aircraft Battalion in July 1916, Richard was again promoted to Corporal.

Corporal Langley was injured while serving for the Royal Engineers AA; he was admitted to the General Hospital in Tunbridge Wells, and has a hernia operated on. After two months recovering in hospital, he re-joined his battalion.

Richard was transferred again in January 1918, this time being assigned to the London Electrical Engineers. It was here that he saw out the remainder of the war.

It was while he was serving in Sheerness that Richard contracted influenza. Hospitalised on the island on 28th November 1918, he sadly did not recover. Corporal Langley passed away from pneumonia on 5th December 1918. He was just 21 years of age.

Richard Frederick Langley lies at rest in the Woodlands Cemetery in his home town of Gillingham, Kent.

Richard’s older brother Albert was also involved in war service and was a skilled labourer at Chatham Dockyard. In February 1916, he boarded the SS Maloja, a steamship bound for Bombay with over 400 passengers and crew on board.

At around 10:30am on Sunday 27th February, the ship was sailing through the Straits of Dover when it struck a mine. The vessel sank within 24 minutes. Over 150 people died in the explosion, from drowning or from hypothermia.

Sadly, Albert’s body was not recovered. He was just 21 years old. He is commemorated on the Naval Memorial in Chatham, Kent.

Army Veterinary Corps, Commonwealth War Graves, Devon, Great War, history, illness, injury, photography, Private, Somerset, story, war

Private Ernest Painter

Leave a comment
Private Ernest Painter

Ernest Hart Painter was born in December 1884 one of eight children to Alfred and Elizabeth from Devon. Alfred moved the family to Cheddar, Somerset to work at a paper mill in but sadly passed away when Ernest was only eleven years old.

The family rallied round Elizabeth, however, and, by the time of the 1901 census, she was living on the outskirts of the town with her six younger children. Elizabeth worked as a domestic cook; Ernest was an agricultural labourer; his two older sisters were shirt machinists; his 13 year old brother Albert was listed as a gentleman’s servant.

Ernest, by this point, seemed to have taken on the role of head of the family; he continued work as a farm labourer, while Elizabeth earned money as a housekeeper. Alfred became a mechanic for a car dealer and, at the 1911 census, the three of them lived with the youngest member of the family, Ernest’s sister Emily, who had followed in her older sisters’ footsteps as a machinist.

As with many of the fallen men and women of the Great War, a lot of Ernest’s military service records have been lost to time. He enlisted in the Army Veterinary Corps in December 1915, his work as a farm labourer presumably having involved animals and livestock.

Private Painter must have been on the front line as, on 30th May 1918, he was shot in the ankle. Shipped back to England for treatment, he was eventually discharged from service on 19th November, a week after the Armistice. The ankle wound continued to give him trouble, however, and over the following couple of years, he had a number of operations on it.

Sadly, the last of these procedures resulted in an infection, and sepsis took hold. Private Painter passed away from blood poisoning on 15th April 1921. He was 36 years old.

Ernest Hart Painter lies at rest in the graveyard of St Andrew’s Church in Cheddar, Somerset.

Commonwealth War Graves, Corporal, Great War, history, illness, photography, Somerset, Somerset Light Infantry, story, war

Corporal Walter Tottle

Leave a comment
Corporal Walter Tottle

Walter James Tottle was born in September 1892, one of fourteen children to Charles and Ellen Tottle from Somerset. Charles was a boatman, and they family lived in Salmon Parade along the riverfront in Bridgwater.

When Walter left school, he became an assistant at a market garden; by the 1911 census, he was living with his parents and eight of his siblings, whose jobs included carpentry and laundering. Walter’s younger brother Henry was listed as a ‘rink boy’, helping with skating at the local ice rink.

Walter’s life beyond this is a bit of a mystery. He enjoyed sports and, before the war had been a regular player for Bridgwater Rugby Football Club. He married a woman called Ruth, although I have been unable to track down who she was or when they couple wed.

When war came, Walter enlisted in the Somerset Light Infantry and, according to contemporary newspaper reports, Corporal Tottle had served on both the Eastern and Western Fronts. He was discharged from the army on 13th February 1919, following a severe attack of influenza, but it appeared to get the better of him. He passed away on 5th May 1919, aged just 26 years old.

Walter James Tottle lies at rest in St John’s Cemetery in his home town of Bridgwater, Somerset.

Walter’s ‘rink boy’ brother Henry also served in the First World War. He had also enrolled in the Somerset Light Infantry and, as a Corporal in the 1/5th Battalion, he was involved in some of the fierce fighting in the Middle East. He was injured, either in Gaza or Jerusalem, but sadly Henry died of his wounds on 22nd November 1917; he was buried in the War Cemetery in Jerusalem.

Canada, Canadian Infantry, Commonwealth War Graves, Great War, history, illness, Kent, photography, Private, Royal Navy, Somerset, Stoker, story, war

Private Oliver Chubb

Leave a comment
Private Oliver Chubb

Oliver Job Chubb was born on 3rd December 1884 in the village of Smallbridge in Devon. He was one of six children to Job Chubb, who was an agricultural labourer, and his wife Louisa. Oliver did not seem to be one for settling down; after his parents had moved the family to Ilminster in Somerset when he was just a child, by 1901 he was living in Lyme Regis, working as a carter in a market garden.

In 1902, at the age of 17, Oliver enlisted in the Somerset Light Infantry. Eighteen months later he transferred to the Royal Navy, serving as a Stoker on a number of ships during what would become twelve years’ service, including the Royal Oak, Skirmisher and Newcastle.

In 1906 he married Rosina Keirle, a brickmaker’s daughter from Somerset. The wedding was in Bridgwater, and the couple went on to have three children, Olive, Albert and Cecil.

There is a sense that Oliver either had perpetually itchy feet, or that he was always running from something. The 1911 census found him aboard HMS Suffolk in the Mediterranean, where he listed himself as single. By the end of his naval service in November 1915, however, Stoker Chubb disembarked in the port of Victoria, British Colombia, and immediately signed up for military service with the Canadian Expeditionary Force.

Again, however, indecision seems to have set in. He listed his marital status as ‘single’ and confirmed his next of kin as his sister Elsie, but on his military will, he left everything to Rosina.

Private Chubb was assigned to the 29th Battalion of the Canadian Infantry; they served on the Western Front from early in 1915 through to the end of the war. He was involved in the fighting at Ypres, and, in September 1916, was treated in England for an inguinal hernia. After three months’ recover, he returned to the front.

While Private Chubb seems to have had a good overall manner, there were blips in his character. In May 1917, he was sentenced to three days’ field punishment for being absent without leave for 21hrs. In March 1918, he was sentenced to another five days’ field punishment for going AWOL for 48 hours. On 11th April 1918, Private Chubb received 14 days’ field punishment for drunkenness on duty.

In December of that year, Oliver was invalided back to England for medical treatment; he was admitted to the Fort Pitt Military Hospital in Chatham with lymphatic leukaemia. Sadly, Private Chubb passed away shortly after being admitted, dying on 17th December 1918. He was 34 years old.

Oliver Job Chubb lies at rest in St John’s Cemetery in Bridgwater, where his family still lived.

Commonwealth War Graves, Devonshire Regiment, Great War, history, illness, India, Lance Corporal, photography, Somerset, story, war

Lance Corporal Albert Adams

Leave a comment
Lance Corporal Albert Adams

Albert James Adams was born in Somerset in September 1878, the fifth of ten children to Robert and Mary. Robert was a mason, who sadly passed away when Albert was only 11 years old. Mary lived on as the head of the household, and by the 1901 census, she had four of her five sons living with her, three of them also stone masons.

Albert had taken a different route in life, and found work as a postman. He married Annie King, a young woman from Taunton, in 1910, and they set up home in the village of Selworthy near Minehead. Albert was the village postman, and the young couple lived there with their sons – Albert and Robert – and Mary.

When war came, Albert enlisted, joining the 6th Battalion of the Devonshire Regiment. While his military records are scattered, his battalion served in India and Mesopotamia; during their three years in the Middle East, the 6th Battalion lost twice as many men to illness – influenza, pneumonia, malaria – as to enemy action.

Lance Corporal Adams was not immune to sickness; while I have been unable to unearth exact dates for his military service, his cause of death is recorded as malaria and pneumonia. He passed away on 9th February 1919, at the age of 40 years old.

Albert James Adams lies at rest in St John’s Cemetery in Bridgwater, Somerset.

Albert James Adams from Ancestry.com
Commonwealth War Graves, Devon, Devonshire Regiment, Great War, history, illness, photography, Private, Somerset, story, war

Private Frederick Hobbs

Leave a comment
Private Frederick Hobbs

Frederick Hobbs was born in December 1886, the fourth of ten children to William and Martha Hobbs, from Bridgwater in Somerset. William was a mason, and all of his children seemed to be good with their hands. Frederick went on to become a plumber’s apprentice, while his siblings worked as a mason, a dressmaker and a carpenter.

The 1911 census found him living in Polden Street, Bridgwater with his mother and youngest sibling, Florrie. William, however, was living round the corner in Bath Road, with three of his other children, Clara, Tom and George. Both of Frederick’s parents are listed as married, which adds to the confusion of them being in separate houses.

Frederick enlisted with weeks of was being declared; he joined the 10th (Service) Battalion of the Devonshire Regiment and, after a year on home soil, his troop was shipped to France. This wasn’t the end of the Private Hobbs’ journey, however as, within a couple of months, he journeyed on as part of the Mediterranean Expeditionary Force, finally arriving in Salonica, Greece, in November 1915.

Private Hobbs has only been serving for a month when he was admitted to the Hospital Ship Asturias in Alexandria, with lacerations to his cheeks and eyelids. The initial report seemed to suggest the wounds were as a result of gunshot, although a more detailed report later confirmed that the injuries were caused by barbed wire.

While in hospital, Frederick’s urine was found to include a high level of sugar. He also confirmed having lost a lot of weight in recent months, but could not confirm when this had begun. He was diagnosed with diabetes, and was evacuated back to England for treatment for both his injuries and his illness.

The damage to his left eye healed, but he was left with significant ptosis, or drooping of the eyelid. When it came to his diabetes, specialists back in England determined that, while it could not be put down to Private Hobbs’ service, it had definitely been aggravated by it. He was deemed no longer fit for military service and furloughed in June 1916, with a follow-up report confirming this three months later.

Sadly, whether Frederick’s life returned to normal is not recorded. It seems likely, however, that the diabetes got the better of him, and he passed away on 25th November 1916, aged just 29 years old.

Frederick Hobbs lies at rest in St John’s Cemetery in his home town of Bridgwater, Somerset.

Frederick’s younger brother Herbert Hobbs also fought in the Great War. He enrolled in the Royal Marines Light Infantry and fought on the Western Front. Caught up in the Battle of Gavrelle Windmill, he was one of 335 Royal Marines to be killed in that skirmish. He lies buried at the Arras Memorial in Northern France.

Commonwealth War Graves, Great War, history, illness, Ordinary Seaman, photography, Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve, Royal Navy, Somerset, story, war

Ordinary Seaman Cecil Bowyer

Leave a comment
Ordinary Seaman Cecil Bowyer

Cecil Henry Bowyer was born in October 1900, the oldest of four children to Harry and Bessie Bowyer. Harry was a carter and, at the time of the 1901 census, the family lived in a small house in the middle of Bridgwater, with Harry’s sister, Bessie’s mother and an additional boarder.

Bessie was keen to earn her way, becoming a musical instrument dealer, while her husband moved on to work as a foreman for a coal merchant. By this time, the family had moved round the corner from their former home, and Harry and Bessie lived there with Cecil, his younger siblings Leslie, Henry and Doris, and another boarder.

Harry found himself before the Bankruptcy Court in 1913. By this time, he was carrying on business as a gramophone and cycle agent, as well as his carter business. Bad debts and living expenses were his downfall, however, and he found himself with a deficiency of £83 15s 5d. The examination was declared closed, according to the Wells Journal, but no outcome was reported.

War was looming, and the family did their bit. Harry joined up, enlisting in the Royal Engineers as a sapper. He was shipped to Salonica, Greece, where he served for much of the war.

Cecil, however, chose the seafaring route. He had to wait until he came of age before enlisting, however, and so it was late September 1918 before he joined the Royal Naval Voluntary Reserve. He started his training at the training base in Crystal Palace, but was only there for a couple of weeks before he fell ill.

Contracting pneumonia, Ordinary Seaman Bowyer was admitted to hospital, but sadly this took him quickly, and he passed away on 11th October 1918 He had just turned 18 years old.

Cecil Henry Bowyer was brought back to Bridgwater to be buried; he lies at rest in the Wembdon Road Cemetery there.

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

Serjeant Henry Cummings

Leave a comment
Sergeant Henry Cummings

Henry Cummings was born in the village of Wembdon, near Bridgwater in Somerset in 1876. The son of agricultural labourer John and his wife Jane, Henry was one of six children.

When he left school, Henry followed his father into agricultural labouring, as his older siblings had done before him. Jane had died when Henry had just reached his teens, so he continued to live with his widowed father, and was recorded there as late as the 1911 census.

On 4th August 1912, he married Sarah Palmer in Wembdon Parish Church; Henry was 36 by this point, and his new wife was 30. They couple may not have thought they could have children, as they went on to adopt a girl, Edith, who was six years old when they had married.

From a military perspective, it appears that Henry had initially tried to enlist in 1908. Based on his service records, it seems that he was not accepted at that point, but when war broke out, things were a different matter. He joined the Army Service Corps on 6th January 1915, attaining the rank of Sergeant.

Henry’s service was to be cruelly short, at just 85 days. Hospitalised in Rugby, Sergeant Cummings passed away from cerebrospinal meningitis on 6th April 1915. He was 38 years old.

Henry Cummings was brought back to Bridgwater for burial, and lies at rest in the Wembdon Road Cemetery there.

In September 1915, Sarah gave birth to a baby girl, Irene. Henry was never to see his little girl, and, tragically, may not even have known he was to be a father.

Photo courtesy of ancestry.co.uk
Commonwealth War Graves, Driver, Great War, history, illness, photography, Royal Army Service Corps, Somerset, story, war

Driver Stanley Pearce

Leave a comment
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, Great War, history, killed in action, Norfolk, photography, Private, Royal Irish Rifles, story, war

Private Arthur Bloomfield

Leave a comment
Private Arthur Bloomfield

Arthur Henry Bloomfield was born on 19th December 1888, the youngest of six children. His parents, agricultural labourer and carter William and his wife Mary, raised the family in the small Norfolk village of East Harling, which was about halfway between the larger towns of Thetford and Diss.

Arthur married Rose Howlett in November 1911; the couple had two children – Margaret and Frederick – who became siblings for Rose’s daughter, Violet.

While Arthur’s military records are scarce, it is evident that he enlisted in the 9th Battalion of the Royal Irish Rifles. Private Bloomfield’s troop fought at a number of the key skirmishes on the Western Front, including the devastating (for the battalion) Battle of Albert in 1916.

A year later, the 8th and 9th Battalions were caught up in the Battle of Messines and it was here that Private Bloomfield met his fate. His pension records show that he was killed in action on 7th June 1917. He was 28 years old.

Arthur Henry Bloomfield lies at rest in the Lone Tree Military Cemetery in Mesen, West Flanders, Belgium.

Interestingly, Arthur’s pension records only cite his beneficiaries as Rose, Margaret and Frederick. This may go further in confirming that Violet was not his daughter.

Arthur Henry Bloomfield was my great great uncle.

Photo courtesy of Commonwealth War Graves Commission.