William Edward Jarvis was born in the spring of 1875, the son of silk printer Edward Jarvis and his wife Elizabeth. He was one of five children, and the family were raised in Crayford, Kent.
When he left school, William found work as a stoker, and this is what he was doing when, in the summer of 1903, he married local engineer’s daughter Maud Kitchener. The couple set up home with Maud’s widowed mother, and went on to have three children, Ivy, Edward and Edna.
War was coming to Europe, and while full details of William’s military service are unclear, it is evident that he had enlisted to play his part by October 1915. He was assigned to the 3rd Supply Company of the 2nd/4th Battalion of The Buffs (East Kent Regiment) and served as part of the territorial force.
Private Jarvis was part of the team given the duty of guarding two explosives factories near Faversham. He was on duty on the afternoon of Sunday 2nd April 1916 when a fire near one of the buildings set off a series of massive explosions, killing more than 100 people, William included. He was 40 years of age.
William Edward Jarvis was laid to rest, along with the other victims of the Faversham Explosion, in the town’s Borough Cemetery.
Memorial to the Faversham Explosion, Borough Cemetery
Ernest Court was born in the autumn of 1865, one of eleven children to Stephen and Harriet Court. Stephen was an agricultural labourer from Kent, and the family were raised in the village of St Nicholas at Wade, in the north of the county.
When he left school, Ernest followed his father and became a farm labourer. The 1881 census found him working at St Nicholas Court Farm, under William Broadley, a farmer of some 500 acres (202 hectares).
In the summer of 1894, at the age of 28, Ernest married Catherine Henman; she was a widow nine hears his senior. The couple went on to have a son, Frederick, who was born the same year, a younger half-brother to Catherine’s own son. They soon moved to Faversham, where work was more abundant.
Ernest continued to pick up jobs where he could. The 1901 census recorded him working in the stone pits; the same document gave Catherine working as a charwoman to bring in some extra money. Ten years later, Ernest was working as a road labourer for the town council. Catherine was no longer employed, but Frederick, having left school, was working as a jobbing gardener.
War was approaching Europe by this point and, by October 1915, Ernest had stepped up to play his part. Private Court was assigned to the 3rd Supply Company of the 2nd/4th Battalion of The Buffs (East Kent Regiment). While a good proportion of the regiment served overseas, Ernest remained on home soil, and was given a protective role at the Cotton Powder Company and Explosives Loading Company factories to the north of Faversham.
Private Court was based at the factories on the 2nd April 1916. That afternoon a fire set off a series of massive explosions at the site and around 110 people – Ernest included – were killed. He was 50 years of age.
Ernest Court was laid to rest, along with the other victims of the Faversham Explosion, in the town’s Borough Cemetery.
Memorial to the Faversham Explosion, Borough Cemetery
William Adams was born in Skelmersdale, near Liverpool, in around 1868. He was the son of George and Harriet Adams, although as his name was quite common in the area at the time, it is not possible to narrow down details of his early life any further.
At some point after leaving school, William joined the army, using the surname of Catlow. The 1891 census records him as a soldier in the Private Infantry, based at the Habergham Eaves Barracks near Burnley, Lancashire.
On leaving the army, William found work as a labourer and, by the 1890s, he had moved to Kent. He met and married a woman called Kate in 1895, and they went on to have a son, Archibald, the same year. The 1911 census records the family living in Cheriton, near Folkestone, William doing labouring work, and Kate employed as a laundress.
With the outcome of the First World War, William stepped forward to play his part again. By this point, he was 46 years old and, while he was assigned to the 4th Battalion of The Buffs (East Kent Regiment), was given more of a territorial role.
Private Catlow was serving at the site shared by the Cotton Powder Company and Explosives Loading Company to the north of Faversham in the spring of 1916. On the afternoon of 2nd April 1916, a fire caused a series of massive explosions at the factories, and William was one of around 110 people to be killed. He was 48 years of age.
William Adams, known militarily as Private William Catlow, was laid to rest, along with the other victims of the Faversham Explosion, in the town’s Borough Cemetery.
Memorial to the Faversham Explosion, Borough Cemetery
Alexander Johnstone de Vere was born on 10th August 1889 in Murree, India (now Pakistan). He was one of five children to Norfolk-born Alexander Johnstone (also known as John Ralph de Vere), and his wife Dorothea who had been born in Sangor, India. Alexander Sr was a Sergeant Major in the 12th Lancers, and the family returned to England not long after his son was born, settling first in Aldershot, then in Sandhurst.
Alexander’s youngest sibling, George, was born in Cairo, Egypt, so the family was on the move again. Sadly, Alexander Sr died in a nursing home in the city just two years later and, after returning to England, Dorothea passed away in a Holborn infirmary just two years later.
Documents for the de Vere children – Ellen, Alexander, Dorothea, William and George – are few and far between. The 1911 census places Dorothea boarding with a family in Kingston-upon-Thames, where she was employed as a dress maker. The same document records William as a Bandsman in the 1st Battalion of the Seaforth Highlanders, based at Chanpatia, in Northern India. George, meanwhile, was a schoolboy at the Duke of York’s Royal Military School on the outskirts of Dover. Of the two eldest siblings, however, there is no record.
In the autumn of 1912, Alexander married Emily Louise Collins. Born in Norfolk in 1884, she was working as a servant in a house in Surrey when she and Alexander met. The couple married in Faversham, Kent, and settle down there, their daughter, Dora, being born in the town in January 1915.
Given his family’s military background, it is not unsurprising that Alexander enlisted in the army almost as soon as war was declared. He may have already seen military service, as he enlisted in the 11th Hussars as a Lance Corporal. By 15th August 1914, Alexander was in France.
Lance Corporal de Vere was quickly caught up in the fighting. He saw action at Mons and Nery in 1914, and at Ypres the following year. By this point, he had been promoted to the rank of Sergeant Trumpeter, reflecting the musical connection he shared with his younger brother, William.
Alexander remained in France until January 1916, when he was invalided home. He was admitted to Dorchester County Hospital in Dorset, suffering from a cerebral abscess. Despite treatment, he succumbed to the condition, passing away on 17th March 1916, at the age of just 26 years old.
Alexander Johnstone de Vere was brought back to Kent for burial. He was laid to rest in Faversham Borough Cemetery.
Sadly, much of John Harris’ life is lost to time. Born in Liverpool in around 1896, he was one of at least eight children, but, with a name as common as his, there is little to identify who his parents were.
What information remains available, comes from contemporary newspaper reports of his funeral:
Acting Bombardier Harris, of the 13th Battery, 2/3rd West Lancashire, died from double pneumonia at The Mount Hospital [in Faversham, Kent] last Saturday. He was 20 years of age, belonged to Liverpool, and had been in the Brigade about ten months. Deceased had been ill for about a fortnight. Several of the men at The Mount attended the funeral, and one of the nurses there accompanied the deceased’s sister.
Faversham News: Saturday 25th March 1916
From this it is possible to determine that John enlisted in the 2nd/3rd West Lancashire Artillery of the Royal Field Artillery in May 1915. His was a territorial force that was, by the spring of 1916, based in Kent.
It would seem that Acting Bombardier Harris’ parents had passed on by the time that he died at The Mount. His siblings – brothers Alfred and Edward, sisters Edith, Clara, Louise, Alice, Kate and Elizabeth – were all based in Lancashire.
John Harris, therefore, was buried in the town where he passed away, and was laid to rest in Faversham Borough Cemetery.
Christian Belsey was born on 12th February 1884 in the village of Preston, Kent. He was one of fourteen children to Joseph and Jane Belsey. Joseph was a farm labourer, and Christian followed suit on leaving school.
He wanted bigger and better things, however, and after his older brother Charles had sought out a life in the Royal Navy, he followed suit. Christian enlisted on 28th June 1904; his service records show that he was 6ft (1.83m) tall, had brown hair, brown eyes and a fresh complexion.
Stoker 2nd Class Belsey was based out of HMS Pembroke, the Royal aval Dockyard in Chatham, Kent, and this is where he returned to in between voyages. His first posting was on board the destroyer HMS Acheron, on board which he spent six months.
Over the twelve years of his initial service he was assigned to six different ships, rising through the ranks to Stoker 1st Class (in 1906), Leading Stoker (1911) and Stoker Petty Officer (1912).
When war broke out in August 1914, Christian was back in Chatham; he was soon assigned to HMS Laertes, a destroyer based out of Harwich, which patrolled the North Sea. She was involved in the attempt to head off the German attack on Yarmouth and Lowestoft in April 1916, during which, two of Christian’s colleagues, Stoker Ernest Clarke and Stoker Petty Officer Stephen Pritchard, were awarded the Distinguished Service Medal for their bravery under fire.
After three years on board Laertes, Christian was transferred to HMS Redgauntlet. He served on board for eighteen months until, in October 1918, he fell ill.
Admitted to a hospital in Samford, near Ipswich, Suffolk, Stoker Petty Officer Belsey was suffering from pneumonia. Sadly, the lung condition was to get the better of him, and he passed away on 25th October 1918, at the age of 34 years old,
Christian Belsey was brought back to Kent for burial. He was laid to rest in Faversham Borough Cemetery.
William John Owen was born in the spring of 1900, and was one of thirteen children to Henry and Emma Owen. Henry was an oyster dredger turned coal porter from Faversham in Kent, and this is where the family were born and raised.
There is little concrete information about William’s life, but it is clear that, by April 1918, he had joined the Royal Garrison Artillery, and was assigned to the 2/1st Kent Heavy Battery. Signaller Owen was sent to Larkhill Camp in Wiltshire for training.
The only further information is that William was admitted to the Fargo Military Hospital on Salisbury Plain, suffering from pneumonia. Sadly the lung condition was to get the better of him: he passed away on 11nd October 1918, aged just 18 years old.
William John Owen was brought back to Kent for burial. He was laid to rest in Faversham Borough Cemetery, just a few minutes’ walk from his family home.
Bert Bennett Adley was born in the spring of 1895, the youngest of eleven children to George and Alma Adley. George was a brickmaker’s labourer from Canterbury, Kent, but it was in nearby Faversham that he and Alma raised their family.
Bert – who was affectionately known as Bertie – found work with a local baker when he left school, and this stood him in good stead when war broke out. He was called up in June 1915, and joined the Army Service Corps as a Private. His service records give little personal information, but they do give his height as 5ft 5ins (1.65m) and his weight as 9st 2lbs (58kg).
Private Adley’s military life was to be tragically short. Based in Aldershot, Hampshire, it is likely that the sudden mixing of recruits from across the country was key in his contracting pneumonia. He was admitted to hospital on 26th June, and died two weeks later, on 11th July 1915. He was just 20 years of age, and had been in the Army Service Corps for just 28 days.
Bert Bennett Adley’s body was brought back to Kent for burial. He was laid to rest in his home town, in the Faversham Borough Cemetery.
William Aubrey Wyborn was born on 15th November 1897, the middle of three children to farmer-cum-greengrocer-cum-butcher Henry Wyborn and his wife, Esther. The family lived in the Kent village of Tilmanstone, not far from Deal, but soon moved to Faversham in the north of the county.
William proved to be an astute student. After being a pupil at Faversham District Schools, he gained a scholarship to the towns Grammar School. He spent six years there, and proved to be a studious pupil, gaining a prize for maths. He was then granted a scholarship to the Sheffield School of Engineering, and, while studying for his degree there, war broke out.
William joined the West Lancashire Royal Field Artillery in June 1916 and was sent to Aldershot for training. sadly, Gunner Wyborn’s career was to be cut short – while training, he contracted diphtheria and pneumonia, passing away from a combination of the illnesses on 3rd November 1916. He was just short of his 19th birthday.
William Aubrey Wyborn was brought back to Kent for burial. He lies at rest in the family plot in the Faversham Borough Cemetery.
Herbert Macklin was born in Lambeth, Surrey, on 14th August 1897, the youngest of six children to Enos and Sarah Macklin. Enos was a general labourer and, after his mother died in 1909, Herbert worked around his school as a baker’s errand boy, to bring in a little more money for his family.
After Enos passed away in 1912, and with his older sisters all having families of their own, Herbert and his older brother William did what they could to survive, getting some support from the local poor school.
The outbreak of war gave the brothers a sense of purpose, and both enlisted. William joined the Royal Field Artillery, and was sent to France in September 1915.
Herbert, being six years younger than his brother, enlisted later than his sibling. He joined the Middlesex Regiment, on 10th May 1916, and his service records show that he was 5ft 4.5ins (1.64m) tall, 126lbs (57.2kg) in weight and had a fair physical development. While Herbert had a fair physical development, he was also recorded as having flat feet, which somewhat limited his army service.
Private Macklin transferred across to the Devonshire Regiment a few months after enlisting. He was then assigned to the regiment’s Labour Corps in the summer of 1917, and remained with them for the rest of his service.
While William was serving abroad, Herbert remained on home soil for the duration. By the spring of 1918, he was working in Kent, but was admitted to hospital in Faversham, suffering from acute tonsillitis. Sadly, this was to prove too much for Private Macklin’s body to take: he suffered cardiac failure, and died on 12th April 1918. He was 21 years of age.
Herbert Macklin was laid to rest in the Borough Cemetery of the town in which he passed, Faversham.
Tragedy was to strike again for the Macklin brothers: as the war moved into its closing months, Driver William Macklin was based in Salonika, Greece. He was not to see England’s shores again, sadly: he passed away on 23rd November 1918, aged just 27 years old.
Death and Service 