Tag Archives: family

Commonwealth War Graves, Great War, history, illness, photography, Private, Royal Defence Corps, Somerset, Somerset Light Infantry, story, war

Private Martin Kiddle

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Private Martin Kiddle

Martin Kiddle was born in 1871, the oldest of four children to Joseph and Annie Kiddle. Joseph was a butcher in the Somerset town of Street, and the family lived above the shop on the High Street.

When Joseph died in 1886, Martin took on the role of shopman, before taking over the business entirely.

In 1895, aged 24, Martin married Eleanor Freeman, four years his senior from the nearby town of Ilminster. The young couple had five children and, by the time of the 1901 census, they were running the business as a family, employing an assistant in the shop and a domestic servant.

It is evident that Martin left the butchery business behind him, though. Ten years later, on the 1911 census, he is listed as a Stock Room Manager in a local rug factory.

Martin joined up when war broke out, initially serving in the Somerset Light Infantry, before transferring across to the Royal Defence Corps.

While there is no date for his transfer, it is likely to have been at some point in 1915. Private Kiddle’s wife, Eleanor, passed away in May of that year, so it is reasonable to assume that he requested a transfer to support her before her death, or to support his children afterwards.

Sadly, however, Martin was also to succumb to illness. His pension ledger shows that he passed away on 5th March 1917, dying from carcinoma of the liver. He was 46 years old.

Martin Kiddle lies at rest in the graveyard of Holy Trinity Church in his home town of Street. The gravestone gives dedications to his father, Joseph, and his brother, John, who had died as just over a year old.

Guardianship of Martin and Eleanor’s five, now orphaned, children – Eleanor, Martin, John, Rachel and George – passed to Martin’s mother, Annie.

Boy, Commonwealth War Graves, Great War, history, illness, photography, Royal Navy, Somerset, story, war

Boy 2nd Class Albert Matthews

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Boy 2nd Class Albert Matthews

Albert Edward Matthews was born in October 1901 in the Somerset village of Tintinhull. His father James was a glove maker, and he and his wife Mary had three children in all, Percival, born in 1897, Clementina, born in 1898, and Albert, the youngest.

Sadly, Clementina died in 1909, aged just 11 years old. Percival also passed away six years later, aged just 17. James and Mary must have been distraught when Albert announced his decision to do his bit for King and country.

He enlisted almost as soon as he was able to, joining the Royal Navy on 14th September 1918, and you can almost sense his enthusiasm to get involved before missing out on the glory of military service.

Boy Matthews was assigned to HMS Impregnable, the ship based in Devonport, Plymouth, where he was to receive his training. Standing at 5ft 8ins (1.73m) tall, with brown hair, brown eyes and a fair complexion, he was recorded as having a very good character and satisfactory ability.

Sadly, however, Albert was not destined to meet his full potential. Shortly after beginning his training, he contracted influenza and pneumonia, succumbing to the disease on 27th October 1918.

He had just turned 17 years old.

Albert Edward Matthews lies at rest in the graveyard of St Margaret’s Church in his home village of Tintinhull.

The story of this family continued to be tragic. By the time of Albert’s death, the Spanish Flu pandemic was sweeping the world and his tiny part of Somerset was in no way immune.

Just four days after Albert Matthews passed away, his mother, Mary, also fell victim to the illness.

In the space of just nine years, poor James Matthews had buried all three of his children and his wife. A newspaper reported on Mary’s funeral, recognising the “very heavy trials” he had undergone.

The same paper, reports that the influenza pandemic is fizzling out.

A large number of parishioners have been attacked with “flu”, but the epidemic is now on the wane. The school has been closed for the last fortnight.

Western Chronicle: Friday 8th November 1918
Commonwealth War Graves, Dorset, Great War, history, injury, photography, Private, story, war, Wiltshire Regiment

Private Percy Norris

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Private Percy Norris

Percy Norris was born in 1894, the youngest of eleven children to William and Julia Norris. William was the caretaker for the water works in Somerton, Somerset, and this is where the family of eleven lived.

By the time of the 1911 census, Percy’s older brother Henry had joined his father at the water works. Julia had passed away five years before, and Percy and three of his siblings continued to live with William. At this point Percy was working as a gardener.

Private Norris’ full military records are not readily available, but it is evident that he enlisted in the 7th Battalion of the Wiltshire Regiment. This was a service troop, formed in 1914, who saw service in France and the Balkans.

It seems that it was during one of the skirmishes that Private Norris was injured. While there is no confirmation of exactly when or where this happened, it is likely to have been at some point in the spring of 1918. Percy was shipped back the England for treatment, and admitted to the Red Cross Hospital in Bridgwater, Somerset.

Sadly, Private Norris did not recover from his injuries. He passed away on 5th April 1918, aged 24 years old.

Percy lies at rest in the cemetery of Somerton, his home town.

Percy’s older brother Henry Norris also died in the Great War. Joining the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserves, Able Seaman Norris was also wounded on active duty, dying of his injuries in January 1918, aged 32. He is buried at the St Sever Cemetery in Rouen, France.

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

Driver William Hagger

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Driver William Hagger

William Joseph Hagger was born in the spring of 1885, one of thirteen children to William Henry Hagger and his wife Emily Ann. The family lived on the Isle of Grain in Kent, where William Sr worked as a labourer in the local cement works.

William Jr was evidently keen to travel. On the 1901 census he is listed as a navyman on HMS Lion, a training vessel in Devonport, Plymouth.

His First World War records state that he officially joined the Royal Navy in 1906, travelling to West Africa as an Able Seaman. While there, he contracted a fever, and was invalided out of the service the following year.

William married Esther Elizabeth Reed in May 1909; by the 1911 census, she was living in Northfleet, Kent, working as a cartridge maker for the local arsenal. William himself is not recorded at the same property, and I have been unable to locate him at this point.

He next appears on the enlistment papers for the Royal Engineers. He joined up very early in the war – December 1914 – and after his training, Driver Hagger embarked for the Western Front in August 1915.

While serving, it seems that his previous affliction resurfaced, and William was dogged by colds and coughs. In the autumn of 1916, he was admitted to a field hospital with haemoptysis (coughing up blood), eventually returning to his unit three months later.

Driver Hagger’s health was fair until, in October 1917, his unit was gassed; he was sent back to England and hospitalised in Aldershot, and this time was discharged from the army six months later.

It seems that William did not recover from his illness and passed away on 22nd November 1918. He was 33 years old.

William Joseph Hagger lies at peace in a quiet corner of St Helen’s Churchyard, in Cliffe, North Kent.

William’s gravestone also acts as memorial to two of his brothers, Henry and Leonard.

Henry Alfred Hagger was born two years after William. He was also keen to make a name for himself, emigrating to California, and working as a streetcar conductor in Oakland. Initially declaring himself exempt from draft as he had a wife to support, he subsequently joined the British Columbia Regiment on 31st July 1917.

Henry was attached to the Forestry Depot of the Canadian Expeditionary Force, who were to be shipped to Europe to harvest trees for use on the Western Front. However, at the point of his medical – in September 1917 – he was discharged as unfit for active service due to his asthma.

Henry Hagger died on 13th February 1919, presumably of his lung condition. He is buried in Ross Bay Cemetery in British Columbia.

Leonard Dealimark Hagger was born in 1899. He enlisted as soon as he was able to, just short of his 18th birthday. Joining the York & Lancaster Regiment, he was posted in 1918.

His battalion saw some of the fiercest of the battles in the closing months of the war – Estaires, Messines, Bailleul, Kemmel Ridge, Scherpenberg, Selle, Valenciennes – and it is likely that Leonard was involved in some of these engagements.

Private Hagger was wounded in the closing weeks of the war, and passed away in a hospital in Liege, Belgium on 15th November 1918. He had just turned 19 years of age.

Private Leonard Hagger lies at peace in the Robermont Cemetery in Belgium.

Commonwealth War Graves, Dorset, Great War, history, illness, Royal Army Service Corps, Saddler, story, war

Saddler Tom Rawlings

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Saddler Tom Rawlings

Tom Hallett Walter Rawlings was born in 1896, the eldest of six children (and only son) to Walter and Jane Rawlings. Dorset-born Walter had worked as a carpenter and a groom, and Tom had joined him as a stable lad by the time of the 1911 census.

By the time he enlisted in July 1915, Tom’s work with all things equine helped land him a role in the Royal Army Service Corps as a Saddler. His role was backed up as he had previously been apprenticed to Ernest Cottle, a saddler in Blandford, Dorset.

Initially he worked on the Home Front, but he was posted to France as part of the British Expeditionary Force in January 1916, as part of the 1st Company.

Saddler Rawlings’ time overseas was brief; within three months of being shipped overseas he had contracted phthisis (also known as tuberculosis), and he was sent home for treatment on 22nd April 1916.

His health reached the point where he was discharged as being medically unfit on 12th June, and within a matter of weeks, Tom has passed away.

Tom Hallett Walter Rawlings died on 20th June 1916; he was 19 years old. He lies at rest in the cemetery of his home town, Sherborne.

Tom’s father Walter also entered the army as worked in the Royal Army Service Corps. While records of his military career are not immediately evident, it seems that he survived the war, although he may have been discharged in 1919 having fallen ill with malaria.

Commonwealth War Graves, Great War, history, illness, photography, Private, Royal Warwickshire Regiment, Somerset, story

Private Roberts Hallett

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Private Roberts Hallett

Private Roberts Pretoria Hallett was born in the summer of 1900, to Frank – a shepherd from Charlton Adam in Somerset – and Emily, who came from the neighbouring village of Charlton Mackrell. Roberts (the correct spelling) was the youngest of eleven children.

Roberts was just twelve when his father died, and, when war came, he enlisted in Taunton, along with his brothers, Francis and William.

Private Hallett was assigned to the 5th Battalion Royal Warwickshire Regiment. While his records don’t identify exactly when he saw battle, by the last year of the war the battalion would have been involved in the fighting in northern Italy.

What we can say for certain is that he was shipped home at some point towards the end of the war. He was admitted to the No. 1 Northern General Hospital in Newcastle-upon-Tyne in October 1918. Private Hallett’s records show that he died “of disease” on 16th October.

Roberts Pretoria Hallett lies at rest in the churchyard of St Mary’s in his home village of Charlton Mackrell, Somerset.

The Great War was not kind to Emily Hallett: having lost her husband in 1912, her son William died while fighting in India in 1916 and that is where he was buried. Her other son Francis died in the Third Battle of Ypres in June 1917 and lies at rest in Belgium.

Roberts Hallett, therefore, is the only one of the three brothers to be buried local to her.

Commonwealth War Graves, Great War, history, illness, photography, Royal Navy, Somerset, Stoker, story, war

Stoker 2nd Class Frederick Pople

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Stoker Frederick Pople

Frederick Richard Pople was the second of three children – all sons – of Frederick and Emma Pople, born in 1887 in Street, Somerset.

He married Beatrice Cox in 1910 and, by the following year the newlyweds had moved to South Wales, when Frederick found work on the railways. The couple had one child, Frederick Alonzo Pople, who was born in 1912.

Sadly, Beatrice passed away a couple of years later; Frederick married again, to Beatrice Salmon, in November 1914; the couple had a son, Edward George Salmon Pople, who was born on Valentine’s Day 1918.

Frederick enlisted relatively late in the war – he was 30 when he signed up on 25th January 1918, and is likely to have missed the birth of his son.

He enrolled in the Royal Navy and his training took place at HMS Vivid II in Devonport. By March of that year, he was serving as a stoker on the HMS Attentive III, part of the Dover patrol.

Stoker Pople continued to work on the HMS Attentive after the conclusion of hostilities in November 1918. Sadly, he contracted pneumonia and passed away 11th February 1919, leaving Beatrice with a son of less than a year old.

Frederick Richard Pople is buried in the Cemetery of his home town, Glastonbury.

Commonwealth War Graves, Great War, history, illness, injury, photography, Private, Somerset, South African Infantry, story, war

Private Edwin Hann

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Private Edwin Hann

Edwin Robert Hann was born in Johannesburg, South Africa, to Albert Edward and Jemima Jane Hann in around 1900. Albert had been born in Glastonbury, Somerset, but had emigrated by the 1890s, where he met and married Jemima.

Research has led me to numerous dead ends regarding Edwin’s life. Hann’s tombstone shows that he enlisted in the 2nd Regiment of the South African Infantry.

The 2nd Regiment served in numerous key battles on the Western Front, including Ypres, Passchendaele, Marrieres Wood and Messines. Their last major engagement was at Le Cateau in early October 1918. Given how soon afterwards Private Hann passed away, it seems possible that he was fatally wounded – or at least suffered trauma – during this battle.

His war pension records suggest that he died at a military hospital in Woking, Surrey. A little research suggests that, unless this was the medical wing of the local army barracks, then it is likely that Hann was treated at the former Brookwood Hospital (at the time known as Brookwood Asylum or the Surrey County Lunatic Asylum).

While I can find nothing concrete to confirm this, other Brookwood records suggest that fellow patients were either suffering the effects of shell shock or mustard gas. It is reasonable to assume, therefore, that Private Hann passed away as an indirect result of the fighting on the front, rather than a direct one.

Edwin Robert Hann died aged just 18 years old. His body was brought back to his grandparents, and he lies at rest in the cemetery in Glastonbury, Somerset.

Commonwealth War Graves, Great War, history, illness, photography, Private, Somerset, story, war, West Somerset Yeomanry

Private Stephen Rawle

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Private Stephen John Rawle

Stephen John Rawle was born in 1894, the second of four sons of George Rawle, a sailor, and Louisa, his wife.

By the time war broke out, Stephen was working as a groom in Wheddon Cross, just south of Minehead.

As the Great War loomed, he enlisted and Private Rawle serving on the home front. His record show that he stood at 5ft 9.5ins (1.76m) and was of good enough health to be enrolled for the Territorial Force. He was assigned to the West Somerset Yeomanry.

He was medically discharged from service on 29th March 1915, having served for one year and 31 days.

The records show no signs of injury or wounds, and newspapers of the period do not link him with any misadventure. I can only assume, therefore, that he died of natural causes, possibly linked to the Spanish Flu Pandemic. Stephen died on 5th September 1918. He was 25 years old.

Private Stephen John Rawle lies at rest in the churchyard of Lydeard St Lawrence, alongside two of his brothers, Ernest and William.

George and Louisa’s other son – Edward – also served, enlisting in the Somerset Light Infantry and fighting in the Balkans. Private Edward Rawle survived the war, returning home in March 1919.

It should be noted that, by June 1921, George and Louisa had lost three of her four sons to the Great War. Their daughter, Norah, had also passed away in 1918.

The 1921 census found Louisa living in East Town, in the parish of Tolland, not far from Lydeard St Lawrence. Edward was living with her, as were her three-year-old granddaughter, Lorna, and her eighteen-month-old grandson Beatty. It is unclear whose children they were. George, at this point, was helping his younger brother out on the family farm in Williton.

Commonwealth War Graves, Great War, history, illness, photography, Private, Somerset, story, war, West Somerset Yeomanry

Private Ernest Rawle

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Private Ernest Charles Rawle

Ernest Charles Rawle was born in 1899, the fourth son of George Rawle, a sailor, and Louisa, his wife.

Ernest was still at school at the time of the 1911 census, and enlisted in the West Somerset Yeomanry, but enlisted in the army in April 1915. His served on the Home Front, but was discharged as being unfit for war service on 22nd July 1916.

Private Rawle’s discharge records confirm that he had pulmonary tuberculosis, which he had contracted a couple of months before. They go on to suggest that it was not a permanent condition, but was likely to render him unfit for service for a number of months.

Eager to do his bit, Ernest’s record show that he re-enlisted in August 1916, and that he was considered fit for military service by the November of that year.

His medical records continue further – he was admitted to a field hospital again in March 1917, again suffering from tuberculosis. He was moved back to base as he was “a danger to his comrades”.

His records after March 1917 are not available, but he passed way from TB in November 1919. He was just 21 years old.

Private Ernest Rawle lies at peace in the churchyard of Lydeard St Lawrence, alongside his two brothers, Stephen and William.

George and Louisa’s other son – Edward – also served, enlisting in the Somerset Light Infantry and fighting in the Balkans. Private Edward Rawle survived the war, returning home in March 1919.

It should be noted that, by June 1921, George and Louisa had lost three of her four sons to the Great War. Their daughter, Norah, had also passed away in 1918.

The 1921 census found Louisa living in East Town, in the parish of Tolland, not far from Lydeard St Lawrence. Edward was living with her, as were her three-year-old granddaughter, Lorna, and her eighteen-month-old grandson Beatty. It is unclear whose children they were. George, at this point, was helping his younger brother out on the family farm in Williton.