Howard Edward Parker was born in the summer of 1895 and was one of six children to Edward and Anna Parker. Edward was a tailor from Castle Cary, Somerset, and it was in his home town that he raised his young family. When he left school, Edward worked as his father’s clerk.
War was on the way, however, and Edward was keen to play his part. Unfortunately, details of his military service are limited, but from what little remains, it’s possible to piece some bits together.
Edward joined the Army Ordnance Corps at some point before June 1918. During his time in the army, he rose to the rank of Serjeant, but it is unclear whether he served on home soil or abroad.
The only other certain information is Serjeant Parker died in Southampton on 21st December 1918; the cause of his passing is unclear, and there is nothing in contemporary newspapers to suggest anything out of the ordinary. He was just 23 years of age.
Howard Edward Parker’s body was brought back to Somerset for burial. He was laid to rest in the family grave in Castle Cary Cemetery.
Charles Franklin Flower was born in Walcot, Bath, at the end of 1879. The middle of five children, his parents were stonemason John Flower and his dressmaker wife, Elizabeth.
John died when his son was only eleven years old, and Elizabeth passed away just two years later, leaving Charles an orphan at just 13 years of age.
He disappears off the radar for a time, only reappearing again when, in the summer of 1895, he enlisted in the 13th Battalion of the Somerset Light Infantry. Charles’ service records show that he stood 5ft 7ins (1.69m) tall, weighed 121lbs (55kg) and had grey eyes, light brown hair and a fair complexion. He was also noted as having a tattooed ring on his left ring finger.
After eighteen months on home soil, Private Flower was sent out to the East Indies, where, apart from a short stint back in England, he spent the next twelve years. He was promoted to Lance Corporal in May 1898, but though his own volition, reverted to the rank of Private seven months later. Charles was destined for bigger things, though, and was again promoted to Lance Corporal in September 1900. Over the next few years, he received further promotions – to Corporal in September 1905 and Lance Serjeant eighteen months later.
In the autumn of 1908, Charles returned to home soil, but his military service continued. On 12th April 1909, he married Elizabeth Ann Wills, a gamekeeper’s daughter from Cannington, Somerset. They set up home in Portland, Dorset, where Charles was based, and went on to have a son, Herbert, a year after they married.
By 1910, Charles had again been promoted, and was now a Serjeant. In the next couple of years, the family moved from the Dorset coast to the Somerset town of Frome. Serjeant Flower’s service continued, but he remained on home soil, even when war broke out.
All was not well with Charles’ health, however, and by the summer of 1915, he was admitted to hospital. He was thin and anaemic, with an enlarged liver and an ‘enormously swollen’ spleen. This was discovered to be a malignant growth, and Serjeant Flower was discharged from military service on medical grounds on 20th December 1915. He had been in the Somerset Light Infantry for more than two decades.
Charles Franklin Flower was not to recover from his illness. He passed away at home on 27th February 1916, at the age of just 37 years old. He was laid to rest in the graveyard of Holy Trinity Church in Frome.
Bertie Richard Moody was born in Warminster, Wiltshire in April 1885, one of ten children to Joshua and Mary Moody. Joshua was a navy pensioner, who was twenty years older than his wife, and they raised their family in a small house to the west of the town centre.
When he left school, Bertie found work labouring for a man with a traction engine, but, after his parents died – Mary in 1901 and Joshua two years later – he had more need of a trade. The army offered him a life of adventure, and so he enlisted in the 1st Battalion of the Wiltshire Regiment. Full details of his military career are lost to time, but by the 1911 census, Private Moody was based in Pietermaritzburg, South Africa.
War in Europe was looming, and Bertie’s regiment was called back home. By December 1914, however, he was on the front line in France, and, over the next couple of years, earned the Victory and British Medals, the 1915 Star and a promotion to Serjeant for his service.
As time wore on, it was evident that illness was playing a bigger part in Serjeant Moody’s life. He was suffering from diabetes, and the condition led to him being medically discharged from the army in October 1916. Bertie moved to Frome, Somerset, and found work as a labourer.
He still wanted to play his part, and after making something of a recovery, he tried to enlist again, this time in the Royal Air Force. They rejected Bertie because of his condition too, however, so his time in active service came to an end.
At this point, Bertie’s trail goes cold. He died in Frome on 13th December 1918, at the age of 33, and was laid to rest in the graveyard of Holy Trinity Church in the town.
John Bunclark was born in the village of Lustleigh, near Bovey Tracey in Devon in 1888. His father is lost to time, but his mother was farm labourer’s daughter, Elizabeth Bunclark. Elizabeth worked as a kitchen maid for a local solicitor, so John’s grandparents – John and Mary – raised him as their own.
In 1894, Elizabeth went on to marry William Wright – they went on to have four children of their own, while John remained with his grandparents. Tragically, in 1907, Elizabeth died in childbirth; the boy also died.
In 1906, John was longing for bigger and better things, and a military career appeared a good option. He joined the Devonshire Regiment as a Private and, while full details of his service are no available, it seems that John made a good impression.
In 1912, John married Emma Jane Horrell. She was the daughter of an agricultural labourer from Tavistock, who was working as a domestic servant when they met. The couple went on to have four children, between 1912 and 1918.
When war broke out, Private Bunclark was posted to France; his battalion – the 2nd – served in many of the key battles of the conflict, including Neuve Chapelle, The Somme, Ypres and Arras. At some point during the war, however, John transferred to the 641st Employment Company of the Labour Corps; this meant work on the Home Front, and a promotion to Serjeant came with it.
It was while John was on leave back in Newton Abbot that he fell ill. His specific ailment is lost to time, but he was admitted to the Temporary Hospital at the Institution in the town. He passed away on 7th November 1918, at the age of 30 years old.
John Clark was laid to rest in Newton Abbot Cemetery.
Cyril Starr Allen was born on 15th June 1891 in the village of Baughurst, near Tadley in Hampshire. He was the second youngest of five children to Charles and Martha Allen. Charles was a rate collector, and the family moved around the county during Cyril’s early years.
By the time Cyril left school, Charles had become an assistant bursar in Wootton, near Basingstoke. Cyril, meanwhile, had found similar administrative employment and was working as a clerk for a local land agent.
At the start of 1911, Cyril enlisted in the British Army. He joined the 4th Battalion of the Wiltshire Regiment as a Private and was soon based on Salisbury Plain. His service records confirm that he was 19 years and 7 months old, and stood at 5ft 5ins (1.65m) tall. Private Allen served for his initial term of four years, before being remobilised.
In November 1915, Cyril married Mabel Young. She was a printer’s daughter from Wiltshire, and the couple married in Salisbury, before settling down in Frome, Somerset. They went on to have a child, a daughter they called Kathleen.
Remobilised in the autumn of 1915 Private Allen received a series of promotions – to Lance Corporal, Corporal, Lance Sergeant and Sergeant, and, by June 1917, he found himself at the Front.
On 22nd April 1918, Cyril was injured, sustaining gunshot wounds to his shoulder and left arm. He was invalided back to England for treatment, and was hospitalised in the north of the country. He was then transferred to the Royal Welch Fusiliers with the rank of Corporal and sent to Ireland to continue his recovery and work light duties.
While in Ireland, Corporal Allen contracted influenza and was admitted to the Buttevant Hospital in County Cork. Sadly, in his weakened state, it was something he was to succumb to, and he passed away, with Mabel at his bedside, on 15th November 1918. He was just 27 years of age.
Cyril Starr Allen’s body was brought back to England; he was laid to rest in the graveyard of Christ Church in Frome, Somerset.
Corporal Cyril Allen (from ancestry.co.uk)
After the loss of her husband, Mabel went on to live her life. In 1923, she married James Burr, a draughtsman from Frome; they went on to have a child – a brother for Kathleen – called James.
Cyril’s two brothers, Winthrop and Charles, also fought in the First World War.
(from ancestry.co.uk)
Winthrop had emigrated to North America in 1911, but returned to Europe as part of the Canadian Expeditionary Force when war broke out.
Lance Corporal Charles Allen served with the 15th Battalion of the Hampshire Regiment. He fought on the Western Front and was killed near Kemmel Hill in Belgium on 4th September 1918. He was just 21 years old. Charles is commemorated at the Tyne Cot Memorial in Zonnebeke, Belgium.
Percy George Macey was born in Frome, Somerset, in the autumn of 1889. He was the oldest of six children and the only son to Arthur and Susan Macey. Arthur was a general labourer and domestic gardener from Wiltshire, whose family had moved to Somerset in the 1870s.
When he left school, Percy found work at a local foundry, and, by the time of the 1911 census, was listed as a brass fitter. By this point he had met Winifred Rowe, a labourer’s daughter from Wiltshire, who had found work as a servant to a Frome butcher. The couple married at the start of 1913, and went on to have a son – who they called Arthur, after Percy’s recently deceased father – later that year.
War was coming, and Percy joined the Somerset Light Infantry. Full details of his military service are not available, although at some point during the conflict he was promoted to Serjeant and transferred to the Labour Corps under the Devonshire Regiment. He was awarded the Victory and British Medals, but does not appear to have seen any service overseas.
By the end of the war, Percy had risen to the rank of Quartermaster Serjeant. The end of his life is, however, shrouded in a bit of mystery. He passed away on 15th March 1921 in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire; although no cause for his death is evident, it seems likely to have been from an illness of some sort, as there are no contemporary newspaper reports to suggest anything out of the ordinary. He was just 31 years old.
Percy George Macey was brought back to Frome; he was laid to rest in the Dissenters’ Cemetery in Vallis Road.
Edwin Lloyd was born at the start of 1885 and was the youngest of ten children. His father, Henry, was from Bristol; while his mother, Mary, had been born in Ireland.
Henry had been a Serjeant in the armed forces, and his postings are reflected in the places where Edwin and his siblings were born. Henry and Mary’s oldest two children were born in Aden, Arabia (now Yemen), but by 1875, the family were back in England and their next oldest child was born in Dover, Kent. Sarah, the youngest of Edwin’s sisters, was born in Colchester, Essex the following year, but by 1879, Henry had left the army, and had moved the family to Frome, Somerset.
In his retirement, Henry took a job as a grocer, the family living above the shop on the main thoroughfare into the town. Edwin did not follow his father’s trade when he left school; instead the 1901 census lists him as a metal engineer, one of only two of the siblings still living above Henry’s shop.
Henry died in 1907 – a lot of the documentation about his life suggests he was a bit free about his age. The notice in the Somerset Standard announcing his passing gives his age as 69, although it is likely that he was closer to 80.
The following year, Edwin married Florence Emily Letchford in St Matthew’s Church, Bristol. Florence was the daughter of a travelling salesman, but their marriage record sheds more light onto Edwin’s life by this stage and he was recorded as a police constable.
Edwin’s time in the police seems to have been short-lived, however, as, by the census three years later, his role had reverted to memorial brass engraver.
War was coming to Europe, and, while Edwin’s full service records are not available, it’s possible to piece together some of his life in the army. He enlisted in 1915, joining the Dorsetshire Regiment, and was assigned to the 5th (Service) Battalion.
Edwin’s battalion fought at Gallipoli and served in Egypt, moving finally to France in the summer of 1916. He was obviously a diligent soldier, as, by the end of the conflict, he had made the rank of Serjeant.
A local newspaper reported on the end of his army life:
He had served with the forces for about four years, and on his way home from France he was taken ill, and was, when he arrived at home, in a somewhat critical condition. The fatigue of the journey told still further upon him, and he passed away three days after his arrival.
Somerset Standard: Friday 7th March 1919
Serjeant Lloyd’s pension record gives the cause his passing as influenza, pneumonia and syncope, sadly none of which were uncommon for soldiers returning from the front. He was just 34 years old when he died on 25th February 1919.
Edwin Lloyd was laid to rest in the Vallis Road Cemetery (also known as the Dissenters’ Cemetery) in Frome.
Thomas Francis Myers is destined to be one of those people whose story is destined to be lost to the annals of time. The only definite documents available for him are his pension records, which give his wife’s name as Ellen.
Sadly, with no date of birth for Thomas, no location other than his place of burial, and the potential for any number of alternative spellings for his surname, it’s impossible to track down any further details on his life.
His records show that he was a Serjeant in the Royal Engineers, and that he was discharged on medical grounds on 12th October 1918. Sadly, he succumbed to the conditions just a few days later, passing away from phthysis (tuberculosis) and exhaustion on 23rd October.
Thomas lies at rest in in the Woodlands Cemetery in Gillingham, Kent.
Harold Henry Lean was born in Gillingham, Kent, in the summer of 1890. The youngest of eight children, his parents were tailor Robert Lean and his wife Sarah. His siblings followed a variety of trades – coachman, painter, shoemaker – but Harold was keen to follow a more long-term career.
When he left school (and after his father’s death in 1901), he enlisted in the army, becoming a Gunner in the Royal Horse Artillery. Little remains of his service documents, but at the time of the 1911 census, he was firmly ensconced in the Artillery Barracks in Leeds.
The next record for Harold comes, sadly, in the form of a news report, detailing the inquest surrounding his death:
SUICIDE OF A SERGEANT AT TOPSHAM BARRACKS
Mr Hamilton Brown, Deputy Coroner for Exeter, held an inquest at Topsham Barracks last evening touching the death of Acting-Sergt. Harold Henry Lean, 26, of the [Royal Field Artillery], who died on Saturday as a result of a self-inflicted wound in the throat.
The evidence given by Bombardier JE Driscoll, of the [Royal Military Police], Trumpeter Sydney Russell, deceased’s batman, Bombardier Biddlescombe and Corporal J Williams signalling instructor was that Sergeant Lean, who had some time ago been ill, on Saturday morning was in his room with Russell, but did not speak all the morning.
Shortly after eleven o’clock he took his razor from a shelf in the corner of the room where he kept his shaving materials. Going to his bed he lay across it with his knees nearly touching the floor and drew the razor across his throat. Russell ran to him and caught him by the shoulders, but deceased pushed him away. Russell then called the assistance of Driscoll and Biddlescombe from an adjoining room.
Williams, who was a personal friend and worked with deceased as a signaller, said that deceased worried about the illness from which he had suffered, and two days previously said he thought he was going insane. He had never threatened to take his life.
Captain RW Statham, [Royal Army Medical Corps], said deceased joined that unit in October 1916, and a month later he reported sick. He was sent away to a military hospital, but was returned this year cured and reported for full duty. The illness had a tendency to create mental depression.
On Saturday morning had entered his name on the sick list, but did not attend the sick parade at 9am. At 11:10 when witness was called to him he found him dead. Witness described the wound, which was a very severe one.
The jury returned a verdict of “Suicide during temporary insanity”.
Wester Times: Tuesday 15th May 1917
Serjeant Harold Henry Lean’s body was brought back to Kent from Devon. He was laid to rest in the Woodlands Cemetery in Gillingham.
Percy Harry Hawkins was born in Waltham Green, London, in 1886. One of five children, all boys, his parents were Frederick and Elizabeth Hawkins. Frederick initially worked as a brewer’s collector – collecting rent from tenant pub managers on behalf of the brewery – before working as a tobacconist.
In July 1908, Percy married Gladys Parnell. Sadly, tragedy was to strike and, over the next couple of years both Elizabeth and Frederick passed away in 1909 and 1910 respectively.
By the time of the following year’s census, Percy and Gladys were boarding with a dispensing doctor (or GP), and his wife. Percy listed his occupation as a ‘traveller’, was probably employed as some kind of salesman.
Tragedy was to strike Percy again. Months after the couple had their first child in July 1911, Gladys also passed away, leaving him as a widower and single parent at just 26 years old.
From his later military documentation, it seems that Percy married again in August 1915, this time to a woman called Mildred, and, by September 1919, he had gone on to have three children in total; one boy and two girls.
When war broke out, Percy was quick to enlist. He joined up in Birmingham on 10th August 1914, and gave his profession as a commercial traveller. His records show that he was 28 years and 120 days old, stood 5ft 6ins (1.69m) tall and weighed 131lbs (59.5kg).
After initially joining the Royal Warwickshire Regiment, Private Hawkins was transferred to the Royal Army Service Corps, and was assigned to one of the supply companies.
Over the four years of the war, Percy served on home soil, and was promoted a number of times, rising from Private to Lance Corporal, Staff Sergeant to Quartermaster Staff Sergeant. In September 1917, he was again promoted, this time to Staff Sergeant Major, a position he held for the remainder of the conflict, and on into 1919, when he volunteered for an extra year’s service, rather than being demobbed.
In February 1920, Staff Serjeant Major Hawkins fell ill; he was admitted to the military hospital that had been set up in Brighton Pavilion, Sussex. The diagnosis was heart failure, and, sadly, it was to this that he was to succumb. He passed away on 20th February 1920, aged just 34 years old.
Percy’s family was, by this time, living down the coast in Worthing; his body was brought there for burial and he lies at rest in the Broadwater Cemetery in the town.
Death and Service 