Tag Archives: Royal Army Service Corps

Commonwealth War Graves, Great War, history, illness, photography, Royal Army Service Corps, Second Lieutenant, Sergeant Major, Somerset, Somerset Yeomanry, South Africa, story, Sussex, war

Second Lieutenant Alfred Newington

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Lieutenant Alfred Newington

Alfred John Newington was born in 1878. The oldest of four children to Alfred and Minna Newington, Alfred Sr was a hosier, and the family lived in Brighton, Sussex.

Alfred Sr passed away in 1899, and by this time, his eldest son had followed his trade, becoming a gentleman’s outfitter. By the time of the 1911 census, he was the only one of the siblings still living at home, and was supporting Minna financially and in the family business along the coast in Worthing.

As with his early life, details of Alfred’s military service are a little scarce. However, a newspaper report of his passing gives more detail.

DEATH OF LIEUTENANT NEWINGTON

We learn with regret that Lieutenant Alfred J Newington died at Nordrath [sic], Blagdon, Somerset, on Friday. He was the eldest son of the late Mr Alfred Newington and of Mrs Newington, of Somerset Villa, Richmond Road.

The death of Mr Newington Sr took place after an illness of a long duration, in July 1899, after he had been in business her for about sixteen years. He came hither from Brighton, and established himself as an outfitter at the corner of Warwick Street at the premises now occupied by Messrs. Kinch Brothers.

During his residence here, Mr AJ Newington, who assisted his father in the business, had an exciting experience in the summer of 1896. He and Mr Frederick Barnwell and a friend names Wadham went towards Lancing on a fishing expedition and the boat was capsized, and Mr Barnwell was drowned, whilst Mr Newington and Mr Wadham were in the water for an hour and a half, eventually reaching the shore in an exhausted condition.

In February 1897, Mr Newington went to South Africa, and when War broke out he became a trooper in the South Africa Light Horse. He was subsequently awarded the silver medal with six bars, bearing the names of Belmont, Laing’s Nek, the Relief of Ladysmith, Orange Free State, Tugela Heights and Cape Colony.

When he came back to England, Mr Newington returned to the business and was a member of the Somerset Yeomanry, in which he advanced to the rank of Sergeant Major. His health failed about eight years ago, and he undertook a trip to the Baltic.

During the present War, he joined the Army Service Corps, and was attached to the Indian Cavalry Division in France, and it is only within a comparatively brief period that he was on leave at Worthing. His relatives will receive the sympathy of a wide circle of friends in the loss they have now sustained.

Worthing Gazette: Wednesday 9th May 1917

Second Lieutenant Newington had actually been admitted to the Nordrach Sanatorium near Blagdon in Somerset. This was a hospital that specialised in the treatment of tuberculosis, so it is safe to assume that this is the condition that affected him. He passed away on 4th May 1917, at the age of 39 years old.

Alfred John Newington wasn’t taken back to Worthing for burial. Instead, he lies at rest in the quiet churchyard of St Bartholomew’s in the village of Ubley, near Blagdon, in Somerset.

Commonwealth War Graves, Great War, history, illness, Kent, photography, Private, Royal Army Service Corps, story, war

Private Frank Beacon

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Private Frank Beacon

Frank Archibald Beacon was born in 27th April 1884, one of five children to William and Frances Beacon. William was a bargeman and the family lived in the village of Barrow Green near the North Kent marshes.

Tragically, William died at the age of only 36, leaving Frank without a father from the age of 2 years old. Frances found work as a charwoman, before finding love again. She married James Seager in 1895, who took in Frank and his siblings as his own.

After leaving school, Frank found work both as a builder and farm labourer and this was to stand him in good stead until the outset of war.

In January 1909, Frank married Kate Amelia Smart; she was the daughter of a victualler, and was born on Kent’s east coast, in Sandwich. The couple settled down to live in Newington, a village close to where Frank grew up, and had two children, Annie and Frank.

War was looming, and Frank enlisted. He joined the Royal Army Service Corps, working as a Private for the Mechanical Transport Company. Full details of his military service are not evident, but he was awarded the Victory and British Medals, which suggest that he service overseas at some point.

In the summer of 1917, Private Beacon fell ill, and was admitted to the Military Hospital in Boscombe. He was suffering from pleurisy and tetanus, and is was to these illnesses that he was to succumb. He passed away on 26th July 1917. He was 33 years old.

Frank Archibald Beacon was laid to rest in the Woodlands Cemetery in Gillingham, Kent, close to where he had made a new home with Kate.

Commonwealth War Graves, Great War, history, illness, Kent, photography, Private, Royal Army Service Corps, story, war

Private Thomas Lowes

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Private Thomas Lowes

TJ Lowes is another of those names that challenges you to find out more about their lives. A quick search against the surname and service number identified the full name of Thomas James Lowes, and the Commonwealth War Graves Commission website confirms he was the husband of Mary Lowes.

There is enough circumstantial evidence available to suggest a particular set of records, but nothing to fully connect this gravestone to those records.

Based on that documentation, this is what I believe to be the Thomas James Lowes’ life.

Thomas James Lowes was born in Chatham, Kent, in 1863. One of eight children, his parents were Joseph and Jane Lowes, who came from Durham. Joseph was a shipwright, and moved the family to Hampshire in around 1860, before settling in Kent a year or so later. Given his trade, it the sea ports were an obvious draw, and he found work in the Naval Dockyard in Chatham.

When he left school, Thomas found work as a painter, and this was work that stood him in good stead all his life. He started decorating houses, but soon found employment in the dockyard.

Joseph died at some point in the 1880s, and by the 1891 census, Thomas was living at home with his mother and three of his younger siblings, all working to bring money in.

It was later that year that he got married, to a woman called Mary. The couple went on to have two children – Elsie (who was born in Sutton, Surrey) and Thomas Jr (who was born back in Kent). The young family came to live close to the dockyard again, as this is where Thomas was obviously earning his living.

War was on the horizon and, while Thomas’ full service records do not exist, it’s been possible to piece some bits together. He enlisted in the Royal Army Service Corps early on in the conflict, and worked as a farrier for No. 2 Company Depot. From here on in, however, Private Lowes’ documentation becomes confusing.

The Army Register of Soldier’s Effects confirms the service number documented elsewhere – T4/234931 – and that he passed away on 20th November 1916. It states that the the money was passed to his father, Thomas, which doesn’t tally up with the other records.

The other documentation available – the Pension Ledger and Index Cards – all include the Private Lowes’ service number, but give his widow , Mary Lowes, as his beneficiary.

Thomas contracted pneumonia while on active service; he was admitted to the Royal Herbert Hospital in Woolwich, but succumbed to the illness on 20th November 1916. He was 53 years old.

Thomas James Lowes was laid to rest in the Woodlands Cemetery in Gillingham, Kent.

Private Thomas Lowes
Commonwealth War Graves, Great War, Hampshire, history, illness, Kent, Lincolnshire, photography, Private, Royal Army Service Corps, story, war

Private Herbert Stevens

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Private Herbert Stevens

Herbert Stevens was born in Lincolnshire in 1873. Little record of his early life remains, but his mother, Rachel, was born in Cambridgeshire.

Herbert had at least two siblings; Arthur was ten years older than him, and had been born in Liverpool. Alice, who was six years Herbert’s junior, was also born in Lincolnshire.

By the time of the 1891 census, Rachel had been widowed. She was living with her three children in Chatham, Kent, and working as a laundress. Arthur was a labourer in the Naval Dockyard, which may be what brought the family so far south. Herbert, aged 18 by this point, was a stable hand, while Alice was still at school. To help make ends meet, the family had also taken in two lodgers, Joan Kitteridge, who was a tailoress, and her daughter, two-year-old Florence.

On Christmas Day 1898, Herbert married Sarah Beed. Her father was a ship’s carpenter, based in the Dockyard, and the couple set up home in neighbouring Gillingham. The young couple went on to have seven children.

Herbert went on to become a labourer in the Dockyard, but then found employment for the local council, working as a carman, or carter (presumably his work in the stables and his affinity with horses stood him in good stead).

War was on the horizon, however. He enlisted in May 1915, enrolling in the Royal Army Service Corps, and gave his trade as a groom. Private Stevens was assigned to the Remount Depot in Romsey, Hampshire, where he would have been partly responsible for the provisioning of horses and mules to army units both in England and abroad.

Split across ten squadrons, at times there were as many as 4,000 horses and mules stables at the Romsey Remount Depot, so Herbert’s life would have been a busy one. It seems, however, to have been a strenuous life too an, on 23rd March 1918, after nearly three years’ service, Private Stevens died of heart failure. He was 45 years old.

Herbert Stevens lies at rest in the Woodlands Cemetery in his adopted home of Gillingham, Kent.

accident, Commonwealth War Graves, Great War, history, Lance Corporal, photography, Royal Army Service Corps, Somerset, story, war

Lance Corporal William Parsons

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Bridgwater (St John’s)

William Edward Parsons was born in 1890, one of six children to John and Prudence Parsons. John found work in a number of fields, working as a blacksmith, porter, dock labourer and a hobbler (towing boats along the River Parrett) in his time. Throughout this, he lived with his family in the Somerset town of Bridgwater.

William found work as a collar cutter in a local shirt factory, and went on to marry Matilda Mary Temblett on Christmas Day 1913. The young couple went on to have a son – Leslie William – who was born in February 1915. William was teetotal, and played full back for the local rugby football club, Bridgwater Albion.

Sadly, Lance Corporal Parsons’ military records are sparse; he had enlisted in the Royal Army Service Corps and was based in Fovant, to the west of Salisbury.

It was while he was on leave that William met his sad fate. On the evening of 5th February 1916, he had seen his parents and had set out to organise a football match in the town. He was walking over the town bridge, when a passer-by heard a splash. He saw a man in the water, who was crying for help, and then disappeared.

William’s body was found in the river a fortnight later close to a local brickyard. He was just 25 years old.

William Edward Parsons lies at rest in St John’s Cemetery in his home town of Bridgwater.

Commonwealth War Graves, Great War, history, Ireland, photography, Royal Army Service Corps, Somerset, Staff Sergeant, story, unknown, war

Staff Serjeant William Coggan

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Staff Serjeant William Coggan

William Reginald Coggan was born in Twerton, near Bath, at the end of 1882. His father, also called William, was a railway guard, and with his mother, Annie, he would go on to raise nine children, six of them girls.

William Jr became known as Reginald, presumably to avoid confusion with his father. He didn’t follow his father onto the railways, but found a way to serve his country. In the 1901 census, he was working as a baker for the Army Service Corps, and was based at the Stanhope Lines Barracks in Aldershot (along with more than 1800 others).

Ten years later – by the time of the 1911 census – William had left the army but continued his trade. He was listed as a baker of confections in Glastonbury, was living above the bakery with his wife of four years. I have been able to find little information about his wife, Kate, other than that she came from Dublin.

William Coggan’s former bakery in Glastonbury, Somerset.

William’s life becomes a little vague after the census. A newspaper report confirms that he had served in the South Africa war (1899-1902), and that he had seen five years’ service in France. The report – and William’s pension records – confirm that he had continued in the Army Service Corps, gaining the rank of Staff Sergeant.

William had died in Ireland, and his death registered in Fermoy, thirty miles to the north of Cork. The report confirmed that:

Nothing is yet known of how he came by his death, although a request was made for a post-mortem examination.

Taunton Courier and Western Advertiser: Wednesday 11th August 1920.

I can find no further information about his death and, unusually, his Pension Record gives the date, but not the cause. Staff Sergeant Coggan died on 29th July 1920, aged 38 years old.

William Reginald Coggan’s body was brought back to England for burial. He lies at rest in St John’s Cemetery in Bridgwater, Somerset.

Commonwealth War Graves, Great War, history, photography, Private, Royal Army Service Corps, Somerset, story, unknown, war

Driver Ernest Wood

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Driver Ernest Wood

Ernest James Wood was born in 1891, one of ten children to Alfred and Charlotte Wood. Alfred was a carpenter and machinist for a timber merchant, and, by the time of Ernest’s birth the family lived in Bridgwater, Somerset.

When hostilities broke out, Ernest was quick to enlist. He joined the Royal Army Service Corps in September 1914. Driver Wood was assigned to the Horse Transport Depot Company at Park Royal in London, and there is a note of him being injured on 29th July 1916. Sadly, little else of his military service remains.

In January 1916, Ernest married Hilda Williams. She was the same age as her new husband, and was the daughter of Thomas and Elizabeth, who were also from Bridgwater.

The trail of Driver Wood goes a little cold after that. He was demobbed om 6th January 1919 and on the release form declared that he was not medically unfit as a result of his military service.

Frustratingly, the trail goes totally cold at that point. All we know for certain is that Ernest died on 2nd March 1919, two months after leaving the army. There a no records confirming a cause of death but, as he does not appear in any contemporary newspapers, it is likely that the cause was not unusual; perhaps one of the respiratory conditions going around at the time, such as influenza or pneumonia. Whatever the cause, Ernest was just 28 years old when he died (his headstone is based on an incorrect date of birth).

Ernest James Wood lies at peace in the St John’s Cemetery in his home town of Bridgwater, in Somerset.

Commonwealth War Graves, Great War, history, illness, photography, Royal Army Service Corps, Sergeant, Somerset, story, war

Serjeant Henry Cummings

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Sergeant Henry Cummings

Henry Cummings was born in the village of Wembdon, near Bridgwater in Somerset in 1876. The son of agricultural labourer John and his wife Jane, Henry was one of six children.

When he left school, Henry followed his father into agricultural labouring, as his older siblings had done before him. Jane had died when Henry had just reached his teens, so he continued to live with his widowed father, and was recorded there as late as the 1911 census.

On 4th August 1912, he married Sarah Palmer in Wembdon Parish Church; Henry was 36 by this point, and his new wife was 30. They couple may not have thought they could have children, as they went on to adopt a girl, Edith, who was six years old when they had married.

From a military perspective, it appears that Henry had initially tried to enlist in 1908. Based on his service records, it seems that he was not accepted at that point, but when war broke out, things were a different matter. He joined the Army Service Corps on 6th January 1915, attaining the rank of Sergeant.

Henry’s service was to be cruelly short, at just 85 days. Hospitalised in Rugby, Sergeant Cummings passed away from cerebrospinal meningitis on 6th April 1915. He was 38 years old.

Henry Cummings was brought back to Bridgwater for burial, and lies at rest in the Wembdon Road Cemetery there.

In September 1915, Sarah gave birth to a baby girl, Irene. Henry was never to see his little girl, and, tragically, may not even have known he was to be a father.

Photo courtesy of ancestry.co.uk
Commonwealth War Graves, Driver, Great War, history, illness, photography, Royal Army Service Corps, Somerset, story, war

Driver Stanley Pearce

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Driver Stanley Pearce

Stanley Arthur Robert Pearce was born in September 1895, the fourth of five children to Edwin and Rosetta Pearce from Bridgwater, Somerset. Edwin was a painter and sign-writer, and it was in the creative trades that his children followed.

Stanley’s eldest brother Clifford became a gardener; his next oldest Edwin Jr was a mason’s labourer; while his older sister Dorothy became a cardboard box maker. By the time of the 1911 census, when Stanley was 16, he was listed as a painter’s errand boy, presumably helping out his father.

War was on the horizon, and Stanley was keen to do his bit. In October 1914, he enlisted, becoming a Driver in the Royal Army Service Corps. Assigned to the 662nd Heavy Transport Company, he was based in London. There was still time for visits home, however, and the local Bridgwater newspaper reported on an ASC football match in which Driver Pearce was involved in October 1915.

By this time, Stanley had met Flossie Vickery, from nearby North Petherton. The couple married the following year, and had two children, Ada and Geoffrey.

In 1916, Driver Pearce’s battalion was shipped off to Salonica in Greece, as part of the British Expeditionary Force in the Balkans. While there, he contracted malaria and dysentery, and was evacuated back to England for treatment in September 1918.

Driver Pearce recovered well enough to enjoy a month’s recuperation, but fell ill again, with a recurrence of malaria, combined with influenza and pneumonia. He was admitted to the Brook War Hospital in South East London, but sadly not recover, and passed away on 10th November 1918, a day before the Armistice was signed. He was just 23 years old.

Stanley Arthur Robert Pearce lies at rest in the Wembdon Road Cemetery in his home town of Bridgwater.

Stanley’s older sister Dorothy – the cardboard box maker – contracted influenza around the same time as her brother and, tragically, died just five days after him. The siblings were buried in a joint funeral at the cemetery.

accident, Commonwealth War Graves, Great War, history, injury, Lieutenant, photography, Private, Royal Army Service Corps, Somerset, story, war

Lieutenant Rudolph Symons

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Lieutenant Rudolph Symons

Rudolph Clifford Symons was born in the autumn of 1887, one of ten children to Clifford and Clara Symons. Clifford ran a brick and tile manufacturer’s and later became a town councillor in the family’s home of Bridgwater in Somerset.

By the time of the 1911 census, Rudolph had become the works manager for his father, but war soon beckoned.

Sadly, Rudolph’s full military record has been lost to time, but he enlisted in the Royal Army Service Corps early on in the conflict and was promoted to Lieutenant at the end of September 1914. He was involved in recruiting new soldiers, and it was following one of these meetings that he was involved in an accident.

The local media picked up the story:

On Friday night, while riding through St Jon Street on his motorcycle, to which a side-car was attached, he collided with a horse and light waggon… Lieutenant Symons appears to have been struck by one of the shafts in the region of the heart, and was rendered unconscious. He was at once conveyed to his home, where he was medically attended and was subsequently removed to the nursing home on Friarn Street. On the following day a specialist was called in, and an operation performed, but the injuries were of so severe a character that death ensured on Monday.

Taunton Courier and Western Advertiser: Wednesday 22nd September 1915

The coroner reported that Rudolph had died from an internal haemorrhage and the inquest recorded a verdict of accidental death, and exonerated the waggon driver – a dealer caller Wyatt – from all blame.

Lieutenant Symons was a popular man, a vocalist in the Bridgwater Amateur Operatic Society, and was also heavily involved in the local annual Guy Fawkes celebrations.

He died on 13th September 1915, aged 27 years old, and lies at rest in the Wembdon Road Cemetery in his home town.