Herbert Rowland Sims was born in Warminster, Wiltshire, on 27th May 1895. One of nine children, he was the youngest son to Edward and Mary Sims. Edward was a railway signalman, and the family lived on Imber Road, to the north east of the town centre.
When Herbert finished his schooling, he found employment as a tailor’s apprentice. When war broke out, however, he was keen to play his part. His service records no longer exist, but a later newspaper report fills in some of the details.
The death took place on Wednesday in last week at the Tewkesbury Red Cross hospital of Lance-Cpl. Herbert Rowland Sims… [He] went to India on the outbreak of war with the Wilts Regiment, and subsequently volunteered for service in Mesopotamia, being transferred to the Dorsets. He contracted typhoid, and after being in hospital in Egypt he was invalided home. He was about to receive his discharge, but was again laid low by an attack of pneumonia which, after the illness contracted in Mesopotamia, proved fatal.
A memorial service was held in Tewkesbury Abbey on Saturday, the body being escorted by wounded comrades from the hospital. From the Abbey the coffin was taken to the railway station to be sent to Warminster, and on Monday the internment took place in the Minster churchyard with military honours.
[Wiltshire Times and Trowbridge Advertiser: Saturday 26th October 1918]
Herbert Rowland Sims was just 23 years of age when he died on 16th October 1918. He was laid to rest in St Denys’ Churchyard in his home town of Warminster.
Samuel John Harris was born in the spring of 1895, and was the oldest of three children to Samuel and Annie Harris. Samuel Sr was a cabinet maker from South Molton, Devon, and this was the village in which he and Annie raised their family.
The 1901 census found the Harrises taking rooms at 24 North Street, a house they shared with two other families. Move forward, and they were living four doors down the road at No. 28, a smaller cottage, but one they had to themselves.
Samuel Jr, at this point, was sixteen years old, but had completed his schooling and was working as a hotel waiter. His younger brother, Albert, had also started work, and was employed as an apprentice coach builder. Samuel Sr, meanwhile, was continuing with his cabinet making.
When war broke out, Samuel Jr was one of the first to enlist. While full details of his time in the army have been lost, it is clear that he joined the Devonshire Regiment, and he was initially attached to the 1st/6th Battalion.
Pte. SJ Harris proceeded to India and Mesopotamia with the Territorials. The hardships of campaigning and the trying climate in Mesopotamia proved too much for his constitution.
[Western Times: Friday 9th November 1917]
Samuel returned to Britain, and was admitted to the military hospital in Sutton Veny, Wiltshire. He passed away on 29th October 1917, from a combination of tuberculosis and a cyst in his back. He was 22 years of age.
Despite the apparent weakness in his constitution, the Western Times reported on his youth in South Molton:
The young man was very popular among his comrades in arms, and at Sutton Veny a general favourite. Prior to th war he was a familiar figure at football matches, having played for various teams at [South Molton] and in the district.
[Western Times: Friday 9th November 1917]
The body of Samuel John Harris was brought back to Devon for burial. He was laid to rest in the South Molton Cemetery, just a sort walk from his grieving family’s home.
Robert Kennedy Grogan Graves was born on 1st January 1878. An announcement in the local newspaper confirmed that “at Baronne Court, County Tipperary, the wife of Lieutenant-Colonel W. Grogan Graves, 82nd Regiment, of a son (prematurely).” Robert was the older of two children, while his parents were William Graves, a Justice of the Peace in Ireland, and his wife, Georgianna Graves.
William died in 1890, and Georgianna moved the family to London. The 1891 census found her residing at the Golden Hotel in St Martin in the Fields, while her two boys, Robert and his younger brother, Geoffrey, were boarding students at Francis Napier’s classics school on Shooter’s Hill Road in Kidbrooke, Kent.
Robert found his calling through education. He studied medicine, and by January 1896 he was a student at St George’s Hospital in Tooting, Surrey.
By 1906 Robert had set himself up in an infirmary on Southgate Street in Gloucester, Gloucestershire. That same year, he married Kathleen Schofield: the couple went on to have two children, Robert Jr in 1912, and Bernard the following year.
Graves, Robt. Kennedy Grogan, Scison Lodge, Clevedon, Somerset (Tel. 11 Y Clevedon) – MRCS, LRCP London 1904; (St Geo.); Hon, Med, Off. Clevedon Cott. Hosp.; Med. Off Mutual Insur. N.Y. & Clevedon Hydro. Estab.; late Sen. Ho. Surg. & Asst. Ho. Surg., & Surg. Gloucester Co. Infirm., & Asst. Med. Regist. & Obst. Clerk St Geo. Hosp.
[The Medical Directory, 1910]
Robert had set himself up well during his life. The 1911 census found him and Kathleen – who was better known by her middle name, Gladys – living in their 17-room house on Linden Road in Clevedon. They afforded themselves three servants, including a housemaid, a cook and a motor driver. By the outbreak of war, Robert has an entry in the town’s Kelly’s Directory, and seemed to be a focal member of the community, joining the local Grand Lodge in September 1908.
Robert’s time in the army, is hard to piece together. He joined the Royal Army Medical Corps as a Captain, and appears to have been connected to the air force. His headstone suggests that he served in Mesopotamia, but when and exactly where, however, is lost to time.
After the war, Robert returned to Britain. Leaving the Somerset coast, however, he and Kathleen appear to have set themselves up in Dorset. He died, through causes not detailed, on 12th December 1920, at 42 years of age. His entry on the probate register states:
GRAVES Robert Kennedy Grogan of 1 Charnwood Chambers Seabourne-road West Southbourne Hampshire died 12 December 1920 at The Grange Buckfastleigh Devonshire…
It is unclear whether Charnwood Chambers was his working address, with The Grange being the family’s official home, or if Buckfastleigh served as a place of convalescence.
Robert Kennedy Grogan Graves left an estate totalling £370 14s 7d (approximately £21,100 today) to Kathleen. He was buried in the graveyard of Holy Trinity church, Buckfastleigh.
Charles Baker was born on New Year’s Day 1884, the youngest of six children to Henry and Mary Baker. Henry, was 64 when his son was born, and 21 years his wife’s senior, was a fisherman from Dartmouth, Devon. By the 1870s, however, the family had settled in Paignton, and this is where Charles had been born and raised.
The 1901 census found Henry, Mary, Charles and the oldest Baker daughter, Emma, living at 25 Roundham Cottages, to the south of Paignton town centre. He would have known the Putt family at No. 22, being of a similar age to Arthur Putt, another future soldier. Charles’ father Henry, now 81, was living off his own means, while Charles had completed his schooling, and was employed as a house painter.
In the spring of 1905, Charles married Helen Davey. Born in Hayle, Cornwall and six years her husband’s senior, there is little information about the new Mrs Baker, other than her father’s name, Thomas. The 1911 census found the couple living in a 5-roomed house on Norton Terrace, Paignton. At this point Charles was still employed as a house painter.
When war came to Europe, Charles stepped up to serve his King and country. Initially enlisting on 11th December 1915, he was not formally mobilised until the following September, when he was assigned to the Royal Garrison Artillery as a Gunner. His service records show hat he was 5ft 8ins (1,73m) tall and weighed 159lbs (72.1kg).
As part of the 257th Siege Battery, Gunner Baker was sent to Mesopotamia on 10th March 1917. He would remain in the Middle East for the next couple of years, returning home in March 1919. Charles returned to Devon, and was placed on furlough, awaiting to be demobbed.
Within a matter of weeks, however, Charles had fallen ill, contracting pneumonia. The condition was to prove his undoing, and he passed away on 7th May 1919. He was 35 years of age.
Charles Baker was laid to rest in Paignton Cemetery, overlooking his home town.
William Charles Mence was born in Blackheath, Kent in the spring of 1877. He was the oldest of five children to William Cookes Mence and his wife, Susanna.
William Sr was a chemist-turned-dentist, and by the time of the 1881 census, the family had moved to prestigious lodgings on the corner of Claremont and Victoria Roads in Kingston-upon-Thames, Surrey. William had set up practice in the building, and employed two servants to assist him with the practice, and two more to help Susanna with the family.
Dentistry would keep William Sr occupied for at least the next thirty years, a move to nearby Surbiton in the late 1890s being the only change tot he business.
William Jr, meanwhile, was making his own way in the medical world. The 1901 census recorded the 24-year-old Mr Mence visiting a possible mentor, physician and surgeon Charles Gallie, in Camberwell. William was also noted as being a physician and surgeon, and this was to become the career in which he forged his way.
On 9th August 1906, William married Dorothy Mytton in the Saint Aelhaiarn’s Church in Guilsfield, Powys, Wales. Dorothy was the daughter of a retired army captain, Devereaux Mytton. She had been born in Guilsfield and, at the time of the 1901 census, was living with her family and ten servants at Garth Hall, close to the village.
The young couple’s marriage certificate also sheds some light on William’s career. It confirms that he was working as a medical practitioner, and was living in the village of Perranzabuloe in Cornwall.
William and Dorothy went on to have five children, and named them to reflect their combined family histories. Daughter Evaline Dorothy Cookes Mytton Mence was born first, in 1907, followed by sons John Herbert Myttone Cookes Mence, Devereaux Mervyn Mytton Cookes Mence and Godfrey Powis Mytton Cookes Mence. Their fifth child, daughter Myfanwy Susan Mence, was born in 1914.
When war broke out in Europe, William was drawn to play his part. While full details about his service are not available, his public standing meant that he took a commission as Captain in the Royal Army Medical Corps. His Medal Roll Index Card confirms that he was awarded the 1914-1915 star, so he joined early in the conflict. It also outlines that he served in Mesopotamia from 4th February 1916, in France in 1917 and in Salonika from 1917 to 1919.
Ill health seemed to have dogged him in later years, and by the summer of 1919, Captain Mence had returned to British shores, and to Devon, where his practice had moved to shortly before the conflict.
Dr William Charles Mence, of Axminster, who died in Axminster Cottage Hospital on Friday night, recently returned from active service… He was a medical officer under Axminster Board of Guardians…
Western Morning News: Monday 28th July 1919
William Charles Mence died on 25th July 1919 as a result of an ongoing illness: he was 42 years of age. He was laid to rest in Axminster Cemetery, not far from the family home.
Frederick Sloley was born on 7th April 1897 in Kingston St Mary, Somerset, and was the fourth of nine children to Walter and Mary Jane Sloley. The family were farm workers and were living with Walter’s parents – also agricultural labourers – in the 1901 census.
After he finished his schooling, Frederick found began working with the horses on the farm. When war broke out, however, he saw an opportunity to serve his King and Empire, and enlisted in the Royal Marine Light Infantry. He joined up on 5th October 1914, and his service records show that he was 5ft 4ins (1.63m) tall, with black hair, grey eyes and a fresh complexion.
Private Sloley was initially sent to the Reserve Depot in Deal, Kent, for training, before moving to the Plymouth Division in Devon in March 1915. He records do not make it clear where he served specifically, but by 1916 he has fought in the Dardanelles and Mesopotamia.
It was while he was in the Eastern Mediterranean that Frederick was injured. Wounded in the spine by enemy gunfire, he was medically evacuated to Britain for treatment. Admitted to King George’s Hospital in London, surgery proved too late. Private Sloley passed away on 26th November 1916, at the age of just 19 years old. His mother, Mary, had managed to see him before he died.
The body of Frederick Sloley was brought back to Somerset for burial. He was laid to rest in the peaceful graveyard of St Mary’s Church in his home village of Kingston.
Walter Frederick Lane was born in Sidcup, Kent, in the early part of 1893. The younger of two children, his parents were Frederick and Caroline Lane. Frederick was a carman and the transient nature of his work meant that the family moved on a regular basis.
The 1901 census found them in Eltham, Kent, while ten years later the family of three – Walter’s older sister having moved on – were boarding in Harton Street, Deptford. By this point, Walter was 17 years of age, and he was also working as a carman. (It is interesting to note that the earlier census recorded Walter’s parents by their first names, while the 1911 document used their middle names – Walter and Kate: transient work allowing for reinvention, perhaps?)
Walter sought a more permanent career, and, on 17th March 1913, he enlisted in the army. Full details of his military career have been lost to time and, in fact, most of his service details come from his discharge papers.
Walter enlisted in the Queen’s Own (Royal West Kent Regiment), although, as Private Lane, he was not formally mobilised until March 1914. When war broke out, his battalion, the 1st/5th, was sent to India, and he remained there for the duration of the war.
Private Lane’s time in the army was not without incident. He contracted malaria in 1915, and while he initially recovered, the condition was to continue to dog him over the following years.
By 1917 Walter’s troop was based in Jabalpur, Madhya Pradesh, but in December that year, the battalion set sail from Bombay for Basra, Mesopotamia.
While in Iraq, he had a couple of run-ins with his superiors. On 22nd December 1917 he was stopped a week’s pay for ‘disobeying an order: putting his equipment on a transport waggon’ and ‘losing by neglect his equipment.’ On 18th February 1918, a further 28 days’ pay was deducted for ‘making away with regimental necessaries (1 towel)’ and ‘neglecting to obey an order.’
During this time, though, Walter’s health was regularly impacted when malaria caught up with him. His discharge documents recorded that he had an attack about once a month, which lasted four or five days each time. In the end, he was released from active service, and left the army on 19th February 1919.
Walter had been discharged while admitted to the Dispersal Hospital in Brighton. His health did not improve, however, and he was soon moved to Somerset for respite care. It was here that he passed away on 7th August 1919. He was 26 years of age.
Walter Frederick Lane was laid to rest in the Holy Trinity Churchyard, Newton St Loe, Somerset.
My thanks go to Liz at the local parish office for her help in unpicking the details of Walter’s passing.
Thanks also go to Tim Hill, who has been researching the graves in the Newton St Loe churchyard.
Frederick Walter Coombes was born in 5th July 1891 in Chard, Somerset. He was the oldest of eight children and his parents were mason’s labourer Walter Coombes and his wife, Sarah.
The family moved to nearby Crewkerne and, when he left school, Frederick found work as a weaver. He quickly realised, however, that he needed a career, and the the military could offer one. On 18th October 1909, he enlisted in the the Royal Field Artillery, signing up for three years with the regiment, followed by nine years on reserve.
Frederick’s service record confirms the man he had become. His medical examination gave his height as 5ft 6ins (1.68m) and his weight as 139lbs (63kg). He was noted as having brown hair, hazel eyes and a fresh complexion. He was also recorded as having a tattoo of a man’s head on the back of his right wrist and a small scar on his left hip.
After a year on home soil, Driver Coombes was sent to South Africa. He was to spend a little over two years in the country, the 1911 census recording him at the Roberts Heights Barracks in Transvaal, as part of the 98th Battery.
When his initial three year contract came to an end, Frederick was placed on reserve status and returned home. His trail goes cold for a couple of years, but when war was declared in 1914, he was immediately brought back into active service.
By the middle of August 1914, Driver Coombes was on the Western Front in France. Within a matter of weeks he was caught up in the Retreat from Mons, and was gassed in the process.
He soon recovered and, in December 1915 his troop was moved to Mesopotamia, modern-day Iraq. Within a month, Frederick fell ill again, having contracted malaria. He was treated at the base and, eventually remained in the Middle East for a year.
By December 1916 Frederick was on the move again, this time to India. His lungs had had a battering by this point, however, and he fell ill once more, this time having developed tuberculosis. Initially treated in India, by February 1917 he had been medically evacuated back to Britain. The condition was seen as unlikely to improve, and he was eventually discharged from the army as being no longer fit enough to serve.
Driver Coombes’ medical report confirmed that the condition was fully the result of his army service, and treatment at a sanatorium was recommended. His last day with the Royal Field Artillery was 7th May 1917: his career had lasted 7 years 202 days.
Again, Frederick’s trail goes cold at this point. It seems likely that he would have returned to Somerset and would possibly had been admitted to a medical facility for treatment and recuperation. The next record for him is that of his death, which happened at home on 26th March 1919. He was just 27 years of age.
Frederick Walter Coombes was laid to rest in Crewkerne’s Townsend Cemetery.
William Charles Green was born on 27th December 1897, one of five children – and the only son – to William and Mary Green. The family’s backstory is a bit hard to decipher.
William Sr was born in the Bath Union Workhouse in 1869 and the only details of his parentage comes in his marriage certificate, which suggests that his father was also called William Green, who was deceased. The same document records the groom as being a miner, and that he and Mary were living in Widcombe, Bath.
The Greens do not appear on the 1901 census – or at least that census record for them is lost to time. The next census return, in 1911, does have the family recorded as living in three room in St George’s Place, Widcombe. This particular census was the first to put the onus on the resident to complete the form, and, in William Green Sr’s case, this has led to a handful of anomalies in the record.
William Sr notes his trade as “going out with commercial travellers and hotel work also”. He confirms that he was “Somerset-born”, but suggests that Mary was born in “South Wells” (a spelling error, which should be South Wales), even though her birth and marriage certificate confirm she came from Bath.
The Greens certainly spent some time in Wales – their eldest daughter was born in Merthyr Tydfil, while William Sr was working as a miner there. By the time of William Jr’s birth, however, the family seem to have returned to England – he is recorded as coming from Bath.
William was 13 years old at the time of the 1911 census, and still at school. When he left education, he found work at a fishmonger, but with war closing in on Europe by this point, he was keen to serve his King and Country.
On 7th May 1915, William enlisted in the Royal Navy and, as he was just under age, he was given the rank of Boy 2nd Class. His service records note that he was 5ft 1in (1.55m) tall, with brown hair, blue eyes and a fresh complexion. Intriguingly the records give the place of his birth as Aberdare, Glamorganshire, but whether it is this document or the 1911 census that is incorrect is impossible to confirm.
Boy Green was initially sent to HMS Impregnable, the training establishment based in Devonport, Devon. He spent four months there and, on the day he was promoted to Boy 1st Class, he was assigned to HMS Defiance, the navy’s Torpedo School, off the Plymouth coast. In October 1915 he was assigned to HMS Fox, and remained on board for the next three years.
Fox was a cruiser that patrolled the seas from the East Indies to Egypt and the Red Sea. While on board, William came of age, and was formally enrolled in the Royal Navy as an Ordinary Seaman. With a character that was classed very good, even if his ability was noted as satisfactory, within eighteen months he was promoted again, to Able Seaman.
In August 1918, William was assigned to HMS Mantis, a river gunboat that patrolled the Tigris around Baghdad. He remained on board until the end of the year, when he was assigned to HMS Vivid, the Royal Naval Dockyard in Plymouth.
Over the next fifteen months, Able Seaman Green’s time was split between Plymouth and HMS Columbine, the naval base at Port Edgar on the Firth of Forth. It was when he was back in Devon, early in 1920, however, that he fell ill.
Able Seaman Green had contracted influenza, which had developed into pneumonia, and it was the combination of lung conditions that was to ultimately take his life. He passed away at the naval base on 5th March 1920, at the age of just 22 years old.
William Charles Green’s body was brought back to Somerset for burial. He was laid to rest in St James Cemetery, Bath, to be reunited with his parents when William Sr died in 1938 and Mary passed away in 1959.
William Gilbert Tewkesbury was born in Ilchester, Somerset, in the autumn of 1881. The middle of three children (although his older brother died in 1887), his parents were William and Jane Tewkesbury. William Sr was a farm labourer, and this is something that William Jr and his younger brother, Hedley, also went into.
When war arrived on Europe’s shores, William Jr stepped up to play his part. Full details of his military service are, sadly, lost to time, but he enlisted in the Dorsetshire Regiment, and was assigned to the 2nd Battalion. His mother, Jane, passed away in 1915, and it is unclear whether this loss proved to be the catalyst for her son’s enlistment.
Private Tewkesbury’s battalion served in the Middle East for the duration of the conflict.
During the past week we have had three of our local men who have seen active service home for a few days’ leave… Private William Tewkesbury… who has been on active service in Mesopotamia…
Western Chronicle: Friday 8th June 1917
William survived the war, and was awarded the Victory and British Medals for his service. He returned home, and, presumably, took up his previous employment once he was demobbed in February 1919.
The next available record for William is that of his passing, and even this is sketchy. He passed away on 21st March 1920 in Sherborne, Dorset, though the cause is unknown. He was 39 years of age.
William Gilbert Tewkesbury’s body was brought back to Ilchester for burial. He was laid to rest in the village’s parish cemetery. While not recorded, it is likely that this is where Jane had been buried five years earlier, and where William Sr would be laid to rest just months later, when he too passed away.
Death and Service 