Tag Archives: illness

Commonwealth War Graves, Great War, history, illness, Kent, photography, Private, Royal West Kent Regiment, story, war

Private Frederick Smith

Leave a comment
Private Frederick Smith

Frederick Smith was one of twelve children to George and Ann Smith of Rainham in Kent. Sadly, the couple lost their first four children early on, but at least seven of Frederick’s siblings survived beyond childhood.

His father was a labourer, and Frederick’s two surviving older brothers followed him into this profession.

A lot of Frederick’s service records are missing, but I have been able to ascertain that he enlisted in early 1915, joining the 8th Battalion, Queen’s Own (Royal West Kent Regiment). He trained at Fort Darland in Chatham before being shipped overseas.

The battalion was involved in the Battle of Loos later that year, but it was the fighting at Wulverghem in Western Flanders that changed Private Smith’s life. The German army launched a gas attack on the Allied lines on 30th April 1916; in the second attack on 17th June, Frederick was injured by the gas, and was shipped back to home soil.

The East Kent Gazette takes up the story:

He was brought to Camberwell Hospital, where he was for seven weeks. Enteric fever developed, and young Smith died on Thursday in last week [14th September].

East Kent Gazette: Saturday 23rd September 1916.

Frederick was just 19 years old.

Private Frederick Smith lies at rest in the graveyard of St Margaret’s Church in Rainham, Kent.

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

Serjeant Leonard Paul

Leave a comment
Serjeant Leonard Paul

Leonard Paul was born in Chesham, Hertfordshire. One of six children, he was the second son PC Harry Paul and his wife Mary Martha.

By the time of the 1901 census, Harry had been promoted and had moved his young family – William, Ivy, Leonard and Stuart – to Harmondsworth, where he worked as the Station Sergeant.

It’s clear than Leonard wanted to better himself, as in August 1908 he enlisted in the Royal Field Artillery. After training, he was posted overseas, arriving in India in March 1910. He is listed as a driver in the barracks at Ambala on the 1911 census.

When war broke out, his battalion was moved to the Western Front and he arrived in France in November 1914. Leonard was appointed a Shoeing Smith at the start of 1915, before being promoted to Farrier Serjeant later that year.

Serjeant Paul’s battallion, the 110th Brigade, fought in some of the bloodiest battles of the war – Somme, Pozieres, Third Ypres – and it is almost certain that he was involved in this battles in some respect.

Leonard’s records show that he was admitted hospital in St Omer on 16th March 1917 with Trench Fever, before being invalided back to the UK a few weeks later.

Serjeant Paul was medically discharged from the RFA at the end of April; his release notes show that he was “physically unfit with tubercle of the lung”. His father having retired from the police force, his parents has moved to Kent by this point, and were living in Rainham, where Leonard joined them.

A contemporary newspaper picks up Serjeant Paul’s story from there.

The young man… joined the Army, and had served in France, where he was gassed. This undermined his health, and he fell into a decline, and after lingering for a year at home, died on Saturday [25th May 1918].

East Kent Gazette: Saturday 1st June 1918

A century on, the cause of Leonard’s lung affliction (a gas attack or trench fever) is neither here nor there. Either way, he suffered for a long time before finally succumbing. He was 29 years old.

Serjeant Leonard Paul lies at peace in the St Margaret’s Churchyard, Rainham.

Army Veterinary Corps, Commonwealth War Graves, Dorset, Great War, history, illness, photography, story, war

Private Jonathan Lewin

Leave a comment
Private Jonathan Lewin

There is tantalisingly little information available about Private J Lewin, and what I have been able to identify has come from a variety of disparate sources.

Jonathan William Lewin was born in 1877/8 in Essex. By the time of the 1911 census, he was working as a painter in Colchester. He was living in the town with his wife, Agnes Cudmore, who he had married in early 1902. The couple had no children.

The remainder of the information of Private Lewin’s life comes from a piece in the Western Gazette:

The death has occurred at the Yeatman Hospital [Sherborne, Dorset] of Private Jonathan Lewin, of the Army Veterinary Corps. The deceased soldier had been at the Front for a year, and about three months ago was brought home sick and sent to the Yeatman Hospital. He was there found to be suffering from a malignant disease, and his recovery from the first was hopeless. Deceased, who belonged to Colchester, and was 38 years of age, leaves a widow but no children. The funeral took place yesterday and was attended by a number of wounded soldiers and the members of the VTC.

Western Gazette: Friday 7th July 1916.

Private Jonathan Lewin lies at rest in Sherborne Cemetery.

One of the reasons I love researching this type of history, is trying to discover the person behind the name on the gravestone. It seems such an additional loss, therefore, when the life of a brave soldier, like Private Lewin, has disappeared through time.

Bombardier, Commonwealth War Graves, Great War, history, injury, Kent, photography, Royal Field Artillery, story, war

Bombardier Albert Packham

Leave a comment
This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is img_4688s.jpg
Bombardier Albert Packham

Albert Thomas Packham was born in the Kent village of Milton in 1874. The fourth of nine children to George and Mary, he quickly followed into his father footsteps, becoming a general labourer.

In September 1903, he married Ellen Amelia Manktelow; their first child – Ernest – was born in November of that year. By the time of the 1911 census, the couple had three further children – Albert, Ellen and Sydney – and the family had set up home in the village of Bobbing, near Sittingbourne.

Albert received his call up papers in late 1915, by which time sons Stanley and William had joined the family group. Enlisted to the Royal Field Artillery (Reserve), Bombardier Packham undertook his service on home soil. His records show that he was “not to be compulsorily posted for service under Military Service (Review of Exceptions) Oct 1917”.

Bombardier Packham was discharged as physically unfit for service on 15th June 1918; his pension records show that he was suffering from mitral aortic cardiac disease. His papers records that he was a “steady, sober and industrious” individual.

Ellen gave birth to their sixth son – and seventh child – in November 1918. Less than three months later, however, Albert had died. He was 44 years old.

Albert Thomas Packham lies at peace in the graveyard of St Bartholomew’s Church in the village of Bobbing.

Albert was not initially commemorated with a Commonwealth War Grave – presumably as he had been discharged from the RFA. This oversight was subsequently rectified, and a gravestone erected in his honour. However, this was only done many years after his passing, by which time his original burial place had been lost. His stone therefore bears the inscription “Buried elsewhere in this churchyard”.