Victor Frank Langdon was born in the autumn of 1897, the only child to Francis and Martha Langdon. Frank was a carter and cowman from Clatworthy in Devon, but it was in Bradford-on-Tone in neighbouring Somerset that Victor was raised.
Victor was 16 years old when war was declared, but he was still keen to play his part. While full details of his military service are not available, he initially enlisted in the Hampshire Yeomanry, before transferring across to the 15th (Service) Battalion of the Hampshire Regiment in 1917.
Records suggest that Private Langdon served as part of a territorial force and, by the summer of 1918, was based in Norfolk. It was here that he fell ill, and, while in the camp hospital on 15th June 1918, he passed away. Details of his condition are lost to time, but it was noted as “disease”. He was just 21 years of age.
Victor Frank Langdon was brought back to Somerset for burial. He lies at rest in the graveyard of St Giles’ Church, in his home town of Bradford-on-Tone.
Lewis Morgan was born on 22nd May 1892 in Plymouth, Devon. He was one of six children to former army officer and rector Lewis Harold Gilbert Morgan and his wife, Mary.
Growing up in Plymouth, it seems inevitable that the sea life would take hold in Lewis Jr. He first took up a post in the Merchant Navy, rising to Second Mate in December 1911.
By this point, however, he had set his sights on something more formal and soon enlisted in the Royal Navy. He served on a number of vessels over the years, and was re-engaged when war broke out. By the summer of 1915, he transferred to the Royal Naval Air Service, earning his wings on 5th August that year.
The now Flight Lieutenant Morgan’s service grew as the war continued. The life of air crew at this point in the era of flight was notoriously dangerous, and Lewis was to meet his own fate. On 11th May 1917, he was flying with Probationer Flight Officer Randolph Seed around Edmonton, Middlesex, when an accident occurred. The local newspaper reported on the incident and the subsequent inquest:
Flight-Lieutenant Mitchell gave a graphic account of the accident. He said that about eight o’clock in the evening he was flying at a height of 1,000 feet, and the machine containing the deceased officers was just ahead, but 500 feet higher. The flying conditions were good, and at the time both machines were going steadily. Glancing upwards he notices that the other machine suddenly appeared to collapse, the front extension of the main plane crumpling up. The machine nose-dived, and a black object fell out of it. The machine continued its descent and fell into the Edmonton Sewage Farm… The machine was so entirely broken up that it was impossible to theorise upon the cause of the accident. Morgan was said to have fallen on a concrete path. The deaths were instantaneous.
Taunton Courier and Western Advertiser: Wednesday 23rd May 1917
Lewis Morgan was just 24 years old, and days away from his 25th birthday. His body was brought back to Somerset, and laid to rest in the graveyard of Holy Cross Church in Sampford Arundel. By this point, his parents were living in the nearby Woolcombe House, so their son was, in a way, brought home.
The newspaper article went on to report that Flight Lieutenant Morgan was the third and last son to Lewis and Mary.
Francis Morgan – five years Lewis’ senior – enlisted in the Royal Field Artillery when war broke out. He rose to the rank of Captain, and was mentioned in Despatches for his actions. He was killed in the Dardanelles – potentially at Gallipoli – on 2nd May 1915, at the age of 28 years old.
Walter Morgan was a year younger than Lewis. He also played his part in the First World War, joining the South Lancashire Regiment, and rising to the rank of Second Lieutenant. Walter was also sent to fight in Gallipoli, and this is where he also lost his life. He was killed just three months after Francis, on 9th August 1915. He was just 22 years of age.
The loss of three sons in two years was to take a further toll on the Morgan family. Mary had suffered from poor health for a while, and the deaths of Francis, Walter and Lewis was to prove too much. She passed away at home on 15th July 1917, aged just 56 years old.
George Charles Walrond Sweet was born on 4th December 1889, the oldest of three children to Reverend Charles Sweet and his wife Maud. A Church of England vicar, Charles moved around with his work, and, when George was born, he was based in Winterborne Kingston in Devon.
George was sent away to school, and, by the time of the 1901 census, Charles and the family had moved to Milton Lilbourne in Wiltshire, to tend the local flock.
After school, George studied at Oxford, then followed in his father’s footsteps by taking holy orders, and was soon appointed rector of Symondsbury, Dorset.
When war broke out, his calling was to serve in the Royal Army Chaplain’s Department. Details of his time during the conflict are unclear, although by the spring of 1919, he was attached to the headquarters of the Army of the Rhine.
It was here that he met Phyllis Squire Hickson, who was serving as a Nurse in the Queen Mary’s Auxiliary Army Corps. The couple fell in love and, in June 1919 they returned to England to marry. The wedding occurred on 6th August 1919, and the newlyweds set off on honeymoon the following day.
On his honeymoon tour, the Revd. George C Walrond Sweet… was drowned on Thursday evening in the Cherwell at Oxford, in the presence of his wife.
Mr and Mrs Sweet engaged a punt at Tims’s boathouse and went for a trip on the river. On returning about seven o’clock, when within 300 yards of the boathouse, the punt pole was embedded in the mud and, in attempting to dislodge it the pole broke.
Mr Sweet fell on the side of the boat and then over-balanced into the river. His wife tried to reach him, but without success, and then jumped into a second punt and from that into another boat, but failed to reach him, and he disappeared. The body was not recovered until a quarter of an hour had elapsed, and life was then extinct.
Mr Sweet, who was an MA of Keble College, was only married on Wednesday at St James’s Church, West Hampstead…
[Phyllis’ father] Mr William Hickson… said his daughter became engaged to Mr Sweet in France. He did not meet him until last Tuesday. They came to England to be married. Mr Sweet met with a bicycle accident some years ago and [he] understood from his daughter that her husband was unable to swim or take any active exercise, but while he had been in France his health had much improved.
It was stated [at the inquest] that Mr and Mrs Sweet had been married only one day when the accident occurred and Dr Brooks, a university coroner, said that the tragedy was one of the saddest that had ever come under his notice.
Taunton Courier and Western Advertiser: Wednesday 13th August 1919
The inquest confirmed that the punt pole had broken about 2.5ft (0.76m) from the top. When George was dragged from the river, artificial respiration was carried out for around 50 minutes, but proved unsuccessful. The inquest returned a verdict of accidental death. George was just 29 years of age.
Reverend George Charles Walrond Sweet’s body was brought to Somerset for burial. He was laid to rest in the graveyard of Holy Cross Church in Sampford Arundel, more than likely because he or his father had been vicars there.
This was the second tragedy to befall the Sweet family. George’s younger brother, Leonard, had been schooled in Sherborne, then at the Military College in Sandhurst. He joined the 1st Battalion of the Hampshire Regiment as Second Lieutenant on 5th February 1913, and was promoted to full Lieutenant in September 1914, and Captain in October 1915.
Captain Sweet was then attached to the 29th Squadron of the Royal Flying Corps, and gained his wings at the British Flying School in Le Crotoy, France, in August 1915. On 22nd June 1916, he was on patrol duty over the British lines, when he was involved in a skirmish, and his plane crashed, killing him instantly. He was just 23 years of age.
Captain Leonard Sweet was laid to rest at the Lijssenthoek Military Cemetery in Poperinge, near Ypres.
Captain Leonard Sweet (from findagrave.com)
Phyllis Sweet never remarried. By the time of the 1939 England and Wales Register, she was living in Bridport, Dorset, and working as a political organiser and speaker. She passed away in August 1944 in Cannock, Staffordshire, at the age of 63 years old.
Robert Thomas Creasey (also known as Thomas Robert Creasey) was born in the village of Ash, near Farnham in Surrey, on 3rd January 1896. He was the youngest of four children to Edwin and Elizabeth Creasey. Edwin was the landlord of the Standard of England public house in the village.
When he died in 1902, Elizabeth moved her family to Somerset, where she had been born and where she still had relatives living. With four young children to raise, she married again in April 1903, to local dairy farmer Frederick Gould.
Robert was working as a farmer when war was declared, but was one of the first to step forward and volunteer. He enlisted in the Somerset Light Infantry and in the autumn of 1915 was involved in the fighting in Gallipoli.
In July 1916 Private Creasey transferred to the Machine Gun Corps. Sadly, little further information about his military life is available, but he survived the war, and returned home to Somerset on furlough, before being demobbed.
This is where Robert’s trail ends. He passed away at home on 15th February 1919, presumably from one of the lung conditions running rampant across a war-torn continent. He was just 23 years of age.
Robert Thomas Creasey was laid to rest in the graveyard of St Michael and All Angel’s Church in Angersleigh, Somerset, not far from where his mother lived.
Sidney Alfred Buttle was born on 7th November 1900, one of eight children to Walter and Alice Buttle. Walter was a brickyard labourer from the Somerset hamlet of Churchstanton, but it was in nearby Wellington that he and weaver Alice raised their young family.
Sidney was just 13 years old when war broke out, but he was a young man who appeared keen to play his part. On 31st July 1917, he enlisted in the Royal Naval Reserve, a regiment that suggests that, even at his young age, he had some experience of working with boats.
His service records show that Sidney was just 5ft 2.5ins (1.59m) tall, had a fresh complexion with hazel eyes. Given the rank of Boy, he was initially posted to Falmouth, Cornwall, where he spent nine months training. After this, he spent a further six months on short postings as a deck hand, before being sent to HMS Victory, the Royal Naval Dockyard in Portsmouth, Hampshire.
Boy Buttle was, by this point, suffering from neurasthenia, a nerve disorder, and it was this condition that led to his eventual discharge from naval service in December 1918.
Sidney returned home, but seems to have been weakened by the condition. He passed away at home on 3rd August 1919, at the tender age of just eighteen years of age. He was laid to rest in Wellington Cemetery, not far from where his family still lived.
Tom Simmons was born early in 1889, one of fourteen children to William and Elizabeth Simmons. William was a farm labourer from Devon, who had moved to Runnington, near Wellington in Somerset, with Elizabeth in the late 1880s. This was where their growing family was born and raised.
Tom found work away from Somerset when he left school and, by the time of the 1911 census, he was lodging in a house in Llanwonno, Glamorgan. He was employed as an assistant machine repairer at the local colliery.
War was beginning to encroach on England’s shores, and Tom was to play his part. Full service details are not available, but he enlisted in the Royal Army Service Corps and served as part of a territorial force. For the part he played, he was awarded the Victory and British Medals and the Silver War Badge.
It would seem that Private Simmons survived the war and was demobbed, returning to Somerset at some point by the end of 1919. Sadly, his trail goes cold: the next record available is of his death – through causes unspecified – at home on 20th January 1920, at the age of 31 years old.
Tom was buried in Wellington Cemetery, not far from his family home.
Tom’s headstone also includes a dedication to a Lance Corporal F Simmons.
Frederick Simmons was seven years younger than his brother. When he left school, he worked as a wool spinner in the local wool mill. When war came to Europe, he too played his part. Again, full details of his service are sketchy, but he enlisted in the Somerset Light Infantry.
Like Tom, Frederick served as part of the territorial force, and worked his way to the rank of Lance Corporal. After the war he returned home, but his life there was not set to be a long one. He passed away, through causes not noted, on 26th December 1926. He was just 30 years of age.
Frederick was laid to rest in the same grave as his brother. Technically not entitled to an official Commonwealth War Grave (the rules are laid out here), his service was remembered alongside that of Tom’s.
Clifford Frederick Alway was born on 2nd February 1903 in Wellington, Somerset. He was the fifth of fourteen children to Samuel and Ann Alway. Samuel was a farm labourer and butcher and, when war broke out, he stepped up to play his part, enlisting as a Driver in the Royal Field Artillery.
Clifford also seemed keen to be involved, and it can only be assumed that one or both of his older brothers – William (born 1898) and Wyndham (born 1901) – had joined up. By the summer of 1918, Clifford enlisted in the Wiltshire Regiment. It seems likely, given that he was only fifteen years old, that he had lied about his age, as so many young men did.
He joined the 3rd (Reserve) Battalion of the Wiltshire Regiment as a Bandsman. This was a territorial force, and Clifford was posted to Kent, as part of the Thames and Medway Garrison.
It was here, where it was billeted in crowded barracks, that Bandsman Alway contracted influenza and pneumonia. Admitted to hospital in Aylesford, the conditions proved too much for his system, and he passed away on 3rd December 1918. Tragically, Clifford was just 15 years of age.
Clifford Frederick Alway was brought back to Somerset for burial. He was laid to rest in Wellington Cemetery, not far from where his family still lived.
Samuel survived the war, spending more than three years in France – he was overseas when his son passed away, and so was unable to attend the funeral.
Bernard Fred Lane was born in Wellington, Somerset, in the spring of 1880, and was the oldest of nine children to Frederick and Agnes Lane. Frederick was a house painter and, after a stint as a butcher, his son followed the same work. By the time of the 1901 census he was one of four boarders with the Hapgood family, living in Bournemouth, Dorset.
On 5th October 1901, Bernard married Annie Louisa Joyner. The couple wed in St Paul’s Church in Poole, but soon settled back in Wellington, and went on to have four children: Agnes, James, Mildred and Winifred.
War came to Europe in 1914, and Bernard wanted to play his part. Full details of his military service are not available, but it is clear that he had enlisted in the Devonshire Regiment by March 1918. At some point during the conflict Private Lane was assigned to the Labour Corps, and attached to the 312th Company.
Bernard was serving on Salisbury Plain by the autumn of 1918, and fell ill, although it is not clear what befell him. Admitted to the Fargo Military Hospital at Larkhill, Wiltshire, he passed away on 15th October 1918. He was 38 years of age.
Bernard Fred Lane was brought back to Somerset for burial. He was laid to rest in Wellington Cemetery, the resting place for several other members of his family.
Samuel Troake was born in Wellington, Somerset, on 24th August 1890. His parents were Samuel and Mary Troake and he was one of seven children to the couple. Mary had been married before, and had a daughter of her own. Samuel Sr was a shepherd turned labourer: when Mary died in around 1894, he married again, to widow Sarah Carter. She also had children of her own, something that is noted in the 1901 census, which records husband and wife sharing the house (from his perspective) with six of his children and five step-children.
By the time of the next census, ten years later, the Troake family home was a lot less crowded. Road contractor Samuel Sr and Sarah were recorded living with Samuel Jr and his younger brother, Charlie – both of whom were wool spinners , and the couple’s grandson, Percy.
Working at the wool factory came with benefits for Samuel Jr. It was there that he met Alice Slade, and the couple married on 10th December 1914, at the local parish church. The couple set up home not far from his parents, but war was soon to take him away from his new bride.
Full details of Samuel’s military service are not available: he enlisted in the Somerset Light Infantry, and was assigned to the 8th (Service) Battalion. He served on the Western Front, and remained there until almost the end of of the conflict.
Private Troake was recorded as being caught up in the conflict, and was medically evacuated to England for treatment to a bullet wound. Sadly, the injuries to his abdomen and bladder were to prove too severe – he passed away in a Portsmouth hospital on 30th October 1918. He was 28 years of age.
Samuel Troake was brought back to Somerset for burial. He was laid to rest in Wellington Cemetery, not far from where his widow and father still lived.
Ernest Board was born in Taunton, Somerset, on 20th September 1898 and was one of at least six children to Walter and Mary Board. Walter was a carter for the town’s gasworks, but, when Mary passed away in 1910, things changed dramatically for the family.
The 1911 census found Walter working as a cowman on a farm in Milverton, Somerset. All but two of his children are missing from that year’s national record, but Ernest and his older brother Arthur are noted as being ‘inmates’ at the National Nautical School in Portishead, near Bristol.
This was an establishment set up in 1869 for the destitute and neglected boys of the area. Ernest and Arthur were two of more than 320 students at the school which, at that time, was under the control of Commander Willoughby Still. School life was very strongly based on the running of a ship, with hammocks instead of beds, and a parade ground in front of the building.
There is no information about how long the brothers remained at the school, but, when war came to Europe, it would seem that they were keen to play their part. Sadly little detail remains of Ernest’s military life.
What can be determined, however, is that he enlisted in the Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers, and was assigned to the 1st Battalion as a Private. His battalion fought at, and were evacuated from, Gallipoli, before moving to France. There is no record where Private Board was involved, sadly, although his Medal Roll Card shows that he was assigned the Victory and British Medals, although may not have actually seen time overseas.
Private Board’s passing is also lost to time. All that can be confirmed is that he died on 8th November 1918, and was just 20 years of age.
Ernest Board was laid to rest in Wellington Cemetery, Somerset: as this is not far from where his father was recorded on the census seven years earlier, it is likely that his place of burial was due to family connections in the area.
Death and Service 