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Commonwealth War Graves, East Kent Regiment, history, illness, injury, Kent, photography, Private, story, war

Private Osbourne Winch

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Private Osbourne Winch

Osbourne Ethelbert Winch was born in Kent in 1888, one of three sons to Ernest and Ann Winch. Being the eldest, he inherited his unusual combination of names from his grandfathers – Osbourne on his mother’s side and Ethelbert on his father’s.

Osbourne had moved out of the family home by the time of the 1911 census, and, when war broke out, was quick to enlist. His records show that he was a tall man – standing at 5ft 10ins (1.78m) and he was declared fit for territorial service.

Private Winch joined the 45th Provisional Battalion, before moving to the Royal East Kent Mounted Rifles (also known as the Buffs) in 1916. Soon to be posted to the Front Line, Osbourne married Elsie Taylor in March that year, and he was posted in April.

Along with the move to the Buffs, Private Winch received promotions, first to Lance Corporal and then to Corporal. He again transferred to the Base Depot at Etaples in December 1916 and, for some reason, he reverted to being Private. His records confirm this was “under Para 12.VV.W.L.9/Geb No 5080 (AGI)”, although I have not been able to established what this means. There is no mention of disciplinary behaviour in his records, so whether this was because of the transfer to the depot, I cannot say.

Either way, he was transferred to the Front again on 13th December 1916, and remained on the Cavalry rate of pay.

Private Winch remained at the Front for a number of months. On 19th April 1917, possibly while involved in the Nivelle Offensive, he received gunshot wounds to the head and right hip. He was moved to a hospital in Béthune in northern France, where his hip was operated on.

Osbourne was transferred back to the UK on the Hospital Ship Cambria for medical treatment. His medical report from the UK hospital makes for grim reading:

Private states that he lay out for 2 days before being brought in. Gun shot wound head and right hip 19.4.17. Op on hip at Béthune – bad cough on admissions and moist sound in chest. Large septic wound over right hip exposing iliac crest and much comminution of ilium [breakage of the hip bone]. Acute pneumonia developed and patient grew steadily worse.

Medical Report: E Hamilton-Browne, Military Hospital, Endell Street, London WC

Private Osbourne Winch died at 4pm on 30th April 1917. He was 28 years old. He lies at peace in the graveyard of St Bartholomew’s Church in his home village of Bobbing in Kent.

East Kent Regiment, Great War, history, injury, Kent, photography, Private, story, war

Private Henry Thurley

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Private Henry Thurley

Henry Edward Thurley was born in 1895, the tenth of twelve children to George and Charlotte Thurley. George was a brickmaker from Enfield, Middlesex, and the family moved around to follow his work.

Born in Sheerness, Kent, by the 1901 census, Henry was living with his family in Shoeburyness, Essex. Ten years later, the family had relocated back in Kent, and Henry had joined his father in the brickmaking business, while also working as a waterman – working on boats in the nearby Medway estuary.

When the Great War came, Henry was quick to enlist. He joined the East Kent Regiment – also known as “The Buffs” – in August 1915. After his initial training, Private Thurley was sent to France as part of the British Expeditionary Force.

Private Thurley was wounded on 6th March 1916, receiving gunshot wounds to his right foot, head and eyes. He was sent home to recover, but within a couple of months, he was back on the front line, serving for King and country again.

Henry was wounded again on 16th January 1917; this time is was his right eye that was affected, and he was shipped back to the UK and admitted to Merryflats War Hospital in Glasgow. His wounds appeared more serious this time, and he succumbed to them at 3:50pm on 1st February 1917. He was just 21 years old.

Private Henry Thurley was buried in the churchyard of St Mary the Virgin in his home village of Upchurch in Kent.

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

Private Walter Apps

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Private Walter Apps

Walter Apps was born in 1896 in Kent. He was one of thirteen children to Richard Apps, a shepherd, and his wife Emeline. By the age of 14 he was listed as working on the farm the family lived on; his older brother Bertie was also helping out.

In February 1916 Walter was called up; his enlistment papers show he worked as a horseman, and that he joined the Royal East Kent Regiment (also known as the Buffs because of the colour of their tunic).

Private Apps was posted to the Western Front as part of the British Expeditionary Force in October 1916, and was soon transferred to the Royal West Kent Regiment.

He saw active service, and was wounded on 17th July 1917, receiving a gun shot wound to the face, which resulted in him losing the sight in his left eye.

Private Apps was repatriated on 8th August 1917, and remained there. He was discharged from the army as being no longer medically fit to serve at the beginning of the following March, but sadly passed away on 27th March 1918. He was just 22 years old.

Walter Apps lies at rest in the graveyard of St Bartholomew’s Church in Bobbing, Kent.

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

Lance Corporal Albert Stapleton

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Lance Corporal Albert Stapleton

Albert Victor Stapleton was born in East London in 1893. One of five children to James and Mary Anne Stapleton, he lost his father when he was only eight years old. Mary Anne married again, and where her first husband has been a glass blower, her second, Edward, was a cooper/barrel-maker, and the family moved to Rainham in Kent.

Albert joined the armed forced early, enlisting in the Royal Engineers in December 1910 for a period of four years. When war was declared, this was extended for a further four years.

In 1915, Private Albert married Daisy, and they lived in the Rainham area. Over the next couple of years, he was promoted, joining the London Electrical Engineers and becoming Lance Corporal.

On 24th October 1918, just a couple of weeks before the end of the war, Albert was admitted to hospital in South London with influenza; while there, he developed pneumonia in the right lung. Lance Corporal Stapleton died on 2nd November 1918. He was 25 years old.

Lance Corporal Albert Victor Stapleton lies at rest in the churchyard of St Mary the Virgin in the quiet village of Upchurch in Kent.

Tragically, just weeks after Albert’s death, Daisy gave birth to a son. Albert William Stapleton would never know his father.

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

Private Frederick Smith

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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

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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

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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 belinged 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.

Commonwealth War Graves, Corporal, Dorset, Great War, history, injury, Lincolnshire Regiment, photography, story, war

Corporal Louis Townsend

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Corporal Louis Henry Townsend

Louis Henry Townsend, also known as Henry, was born in the spring of 1881 in Leytonstone, Essex.

Much of Louis’ life remains elusive, he first appears on the census in 1911, and from this we know that he married Florence Annie Ridley (known as Annie) in December 1906. The couple had three children, Thomas, Florence and George.

Louis’ marriage record suggests his father’s name was Thomas Clark, although he also remains a bit of a mystery.

Again, Louis’ military service appears lost to time. He enlisted in the Lincolnshire Regiment, and fought on the Western Front.

The Western Chronicle (26th March 1915) confirms that Corporal Townsend was brought to the Greenhill Voluntary Aid Detachment Hospital in Sherborne, suffering from “a shot through the brain, and from the first was in an extremely precarious condition”.

Louis passed away from his wounds on 20th March 1915, aged 34. He lies at rest in Sherborne Cemetery.

Canadian Infantry, Commonwealth War Graves, Great War, history, Kent, photography, story, war

Private Bridges Baker

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Private Bridges Baker

Bridges Baker, also known as James, was born in Oare, near Faversham, Kent, in January 1874. He was the third of six children to Bridges Baker Sr and his wife Caroline. Bridges Sr was a bricklayer, and this was a trade that Bridges Jr and his older brother both went into.

He soon made the decision to seek new opportunities, however, and left England to emigrate to Canada in 1903.

Private Baker enlisted in the Canadian Expeditionary Force in Calgary. It was 22nd June 1915. Now known as James Baker, he was 40 years old and he cited his mother, Caroline, as his next of kin.

Baker’s actual service is lost to history; all I have been able to ascertain for certain is that he died on 15th February 1915.

Private Bridges Baker lies at rest in the graveyard of St Margaret’s Church, in his home town of Rainham, Kent.

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

Bombardier Albert Packham

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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”.