Tag Archives: Sussex

Commonwealth War Graves, Devonshire Regiment, Great War, Gunner, Hampshire, history, illness, injury, photography, Royal Garrison Artillery, Somerset, story, war

Gunner Alfred Taylor

Leave a comment
Gunner Alfred Taylor

Alfred Taylor was born in the summer of 1888 in Crewkerne, Somerset. The second of twelve children, his parents were Henry and Selina Taylor. Henry, who was also known as Harry, was a stone mason, but when Alfred and his siblings left school, they went into the weaving industry, a key employer in the area.

War came to European shores in the summer of 1914, and Alfred was keen to play his part. He had already been a part of the 3rd (Special Reserve) Dorset Regiment, but formally enlisted on 9th December 1915, joining the Royal Garrison Artillery. His service records note that he was 5ft 9ins (1.77m) tall and weighed 149lbs (67.6kg). The document also confirms his next of kin as his father, who, at 48 years old, had also joined up, and was serving in the Royal Engineers in Canterbury, Kent.

Gunner Taylor was not mobilised until September 1916, and served the next eighteen month on home soil. He did his initial training in Hilsea, Portsmouth, before moving around the country. He finally made it to France in February 1918.

During his time in France, Alfred was caught up in a couple of gas attacks, and was evacuated to Britain at the end of August because of the impact on his lungs. Admitted to the 2nd Eastern General Hospital in Brighton, Sussex, his body finally succumbed to pneumonia. He passed away on 25th January 1919, at the age of 30 years old.

The body of Alfred Taylor was brought back to Somerset for burial. He was laid to rest in the Townsend Cemetery of his home town, Crewkerne. “…All the members of Gunner Taylor’s family were present, except his father and his brother George, who [were] with the Army of Occupation in Germany.” [Western Chronicle: Friday 7th February 1919]

Commonwealth War Graves, Great War, history, illness, photography, story, war

Leading Stoker Victor Jordan

Leave a comment
Leading Stoker Victor Jordan

Victor Jordan was born on 20th November 1893 in Beeston Regis on the north Norfolk coast. The second of four children, his parents were school teachers Albert and Melletta Jordan.

By the time of the 1911 census, the family had moved from one coast to another, setting up home in Bognor Regis, Sussex. Albert had given up teaching, and had become an insurance agent for Prudential. Victor had left school and found work as a wheelwright, while his older sister, Emily, had taken up where her father had left off, teaching in an elementary school, The family of six was expanded by the inclusion of Albert’s mother, Emily, who had moved in with them.

By 1914, war was on the horizon, and Victor sought out a career beyond wheel work. On 21st May he enlisted in the Royal Navy as a Stoker 2nd Class. His service records show that he was 5ft 6ins (1.78m) tall, had light brown hair, blue eyes and a fair complexion.

Stoker Jordan was initially sent to HMS Victory, the Royal Naval Dockyard in Portsmouth, Hampshire, for training. After an initial six-month period, he was assigned to the battleship HMS Indomitable, on board which he was to serve for the next four years.

During his time on board, Victor proved to be a disciplined and determined worker. He was promoted to Stoker 1st Class in July 1915, and reached the rank of Leading Stoker in the summer of 1918. HMS Indomitable was involved in some of the key naval battles of the First World War – including Dogger Bank and Jutland – and Victor would have been on the forefront of maintaining the vessel’s power.

By October 1918, Leading Stoker Jordan was back on dry land, and was based once again in Portsmouth. As the war came to a close, however, he became unwell, and was admitted to Haslar Naval Hospital in nearby Gosport, suffering from acute tonsillitis.

Tragically, the condition was to get the better of him: Leading Stoker Jordan died of heart failure on 8th December 1918, having not long turned 25 years old.

Victor Jordan’s family were, by now, living in the Somerset hamlet of Brewham, and this is where his body was brought for burial: he was laid to rest in the peaceful graveyard of St John the Baptist’s Church.

Leading Stoker Victor Jordan
(from findagrave.com)

Scandal was set to rock the grieving family. Albert, who was now teaching again, was charged with indecently assaulting a nine-year-old girl three times over the winter of 1918/19. He denied the accusation and a jury found him not guilty after only a few minutes’ deliberation.

Albert and Melletta seem to have found it impossible to remain in the quiet corner of Somerset, and moved to Essex. The couple took up new teaching posts, Albert eventually becoming the headmaster of Doddinghurst Church of England School, near Brentwood, while his wife worked as a school mistress for one of the classes.

Melletta died in February 1931, and at this point, Albert came back to Somerset to live with his daughter and her family in Cheddar. He was 75 years old when he passed away at Emily’s family home – called Melletta after her mother – and was laid to rest in St Andrew’s Churchyard, Cheddar.

Canada, Canadian Infantry, Commonwealth War Graves, Great War, Hampshire, history, injury, photography, Private, Somerset, story, Sussex, war

Private Leon Frenette

Leave a comment
Private Leon Frenette

Leon D Frenette was born on 2nd June 1893, in the coastal village of Petit Rocher, New Brunswick, Canada and was the son of Denis and Sarah Frenette.

Leon’s early life is difficult to piece together – the 1901 Canadian census records five Frenette families living in the same neighbourhood, but of the two whose head is given as Denis, neither has a son by that name (although one has a son called Joseph Leon).

When war came to the distant European shores, Leon was working as a school teacher in Bathurst, a town 12 miles (20km) to the south of Petit Rocher. He stood up to play his part for King and Empire, though, having served in a local militia for a while.

Leon joined the Canadian Expeditionary Force as a Private. His service records give his height as 5ft 4ins (1.63m), his weight as 130lbs (59kg) and stated that he had a medium complexion, with brown eyes and black hair. In the section of the records that noted distinguishing marks, the medical officer had identified two small brown birthmarks on his left buttock.

Private Frenette arrived in England on board the SS Corsican on 5th November 1916. Assigned to the 132nd Battalion of the Canadian Infantry, he was based at a military camp near Bramshott, Hampshire. The influx of overseas soldiers would have been a bit of a shock to the locals, but Leon appears to have been up to the challenge. Within a matter of weeks, he was admitted to the camp hospital, suffering from a bout of gonorrhoea.

By the end of the year, Private Frenette had been transferred to the 104th Battalion, and moved to Witley Camp in Surrey. His ailment seems to have returned a couple of times, and he was admitted to the camp’s medical facility in January and March 1917.

By the autumn of 1917, Leon had been transferred again, this time to the 26th Battalion. The troop was based on the south coast at Shoreham, West Sussex, and it was from here, on 16th November 1917, that Private Frenette was finally sent to France.

Leon would have arrived at an already battle-scarred Western Front. Over the next year, he was involved in fighting at Cambrai and Arras. His time was not without incident, and he forfeited a day’s pay on 20th March 1918, for “contravention of full dress order, i.e. being without a belt.”

The 26th Battalion’s next offensive was at Amiens, and it was here, on 12th August 1918, that Private Frenette was badly wounded with a gun shot wound to his right arm. Initially treated on site, he was medically evacuated to England for further treatment.

Leon was first admitted to a hospital back in Bramshott, but then transferred to Bath War Hospital in Somerset. His medical report confirms that he was first seen there at 4:30pm on 20th March, and a compound fracture of his humerus. He haemorrhaged and died of shock at 11:45pm that day. He was just 25 years of age.

With family on the other side of the Atlantic, it was not going to be possible for Private Leon Frenette to be taken home for burial. Instead he was laid to rest in the Roman Catholic Cemetery of the city in which he had passed away, Bath.

Air Mechanic, Commonwealth War Graves, Great War, history, illness, Kent, Middlesex, photography, Royal Air Force, story, Sussex, war

Air Mechanic 1st Class Harold Weston

Leave a comment
Air Mechanic 1st Class Harold Weston

Harold Stanley Weston’s early life is destined to remain a mystery. He was born, according to his Royal Air Force service records, in Southgate, Middlesex in 1887 and, before war broke our, was working as a waiter before enlisting.

On 3rd August 1915, he married a woman called Gertrude in Hastings, Eat Sussex, and it appears that this is where the couple set up home. Harold has initially enlisted in the army, but transferred across to the Royal Flying Corps on 28th October 1915. Air Mechanic 2nd Class Weston’s service records show that he stood just 5ft 2.5ins (1.59m) tall.

Over the next three years, Harold rose through the ranks to Air Mechanic 1st Class, and served in France for nine months during 1916. He then returned to England, and was based at an airfield near Detling, Kent. When the Royal Flying Corps and the Royal Naval Air Service merged in April 1918, he transferred across to the newly-formed Royal Air Force, and was attached to 27 Squadron.

In November that year, Harold was admitted to the Military Hospital in Maidstone, also in Kent, having contracted influenza and pneumonia. Sadly, the lung conditions were to get the better of him, and he passed away on 1st November 1918, at the age of just 31 years old.

Air Mechanic 1st Class Harold Stanley Weston’s body was laid to rest in the quiet graveyard of St Martin’s Church in Detling, not far from the base at which he served. Gertrude posted her thanks to “all [their] friends for their kindness and sympathy shown to her in her sad bereavement, more especially Captain Saunders, RAF, Major Chapman, KCC [Kent County Council?], Sergeant Fowle, KCC, and Sergeant Weller, RAMC [Royal Army Medical Corps]” [Maidstone Telegraph: Saturday 9th November 1918]

Commonwealth War Graves, East Yorkshire Regiment, Great War, history, illness, photography, Private, story, Sussex, war

Private George Sinclair

Leave a comment
Private George Sinclair

In a quiet corner of the village cemetery in Cuckfield, West Sussex, is a headstone dedicated to Private WG Sinclair. Attached to the East Yorkshire Regiment, he passed away on 12th February 1919.

A search of military records gives a little more detail: this was a George William Sinclair, who had died from pneumonia at the West Hylands Institution, which was Cuckfield’s workhouse. George was 29 years old, but there is little concrete information about his early life.

A newspaper report from the day before Private Sinclair’s death, however, begins to shed a little more light onto his life:

George William Sinclair was charged with being a deserter from the Cuckfield Union Workhouse, on November 6th, and carrying away clothing to the value of £1, the property of the Guardians of the Cuckfield Union. PC Upton said that he arrested the prisoner at the Somerstown Police Station. Prisoner was remanded, but as he was taken ill he was removed to the Workhouse Infirmary.

Mid Sussex Times: Tuesday 11th February 1919

George’s entry in the Army Register of Soldier’s Effects does not give a next of kin, so it is not possible to determine categorically where he was born and raised, or who his parents were.

A little more digging found a George William Sinclair recorded in the UK Calendar of Prisoners in 1916. He had been arrested for “feloniously breaking and entering the dwelling house of Sarah Waddingham, and stealing one bicycle, one pair of shoes, one purse, one tobacco box, one tobacco pipe and one microscope, the property of said Sarah Waddingham, at West Halton [near Hull], on the 7th July 1916.“

It is not possible to say definitively that this George William Sinclair is the same one buried in Cuckfield Cemetery, but, given the regiment he was attached to, and the newspaper report prior to his passing, it is likely to be more than just a coincidence.

George pleaded guilty, and was sentenced to six months’ hard labour. This was not his first offence, and had had spent a total of more than eighteen months behind bars over a period of ten years up to this point. On each occasion, he was convicted of theft.

It is possible, given that the country was at war by this point, that George was given the option to enlist, rather than serve his sentence. Again, this is an assumption, however, but Private Sinclair’s Pension Ledger confirms that he was discharged from the army on 6th November 1918.

George William Sinclair appears on another workhouse register, this time in Westminster, London, where he spent a couple of nights just before Christmas that year.

If these records all relate to the same man, his life seems to have been a troubled one. I can only hope that he found peace in that quiet corner of West Sussex.

Commonwealth War Graves, Great War, history, illness, Lance Corporal, photography, Royal Sussex Regiment, story, Sussex, war

Lance Corporal James Matthews

Leave a comment
Lance Corporal James Matthews

James Matthews was born in the summer of 1894, the youngest of five children to James and Margaret Matthews. James Sr was a farm worker from Cuckfield in West Sussex, and it was on Hodshrove Farm in nearby Ansty that the family were raised.

James Jr worked on the farm when he left school, but when war broke out, he found a bigger calling for himself. Full details of his military service are not available, but he seemed to have enlisted early on in the conflict, joining the 9th (Service) Battalion of the Royal Sussex Regiment. Originally formed in Chichester, West Sussex, he soon found himself billeted in the South Down near Portslade.

James must have impressed his superiors, as he was soon promoted to Lance Corporal for his work. All was not to go well, however, as, during the early months of 1915, he contracted pneumonia.

Lance Corporal Matthews was admitted to the 2nd Eastern General Hospital in Brighton, but the lung condition was to get the better of him, and he passed away on 7th March 1915. He was just 20 years of age.

James Matthews was brought back to his home village for burial. He lies at rest in Cuckfield Cemetery, in the shadow of Holy Trinity Church.

Commonwealth War Graves, Great War, history, illness, Lieutenant, photography, Royal West Surrey Regiment, story, Surrey, Sussex, war

Lieutenant Frederick Tugwell

Leave a comment
Lieutenant Frederick Tugwell

Frederick William Tugwell was born in Cuckfield, West Sussex, in the autumn of 1888. The youngest of three children to John and Mary Tugwell, his father was a tailor in the village.

Little more is known about Frederick’s early life, but, when war broke out, he wad there to play his part. He enlisted in The Queen’s (Royal West Surrey Regiment) and, by July 1916 was in France. Frederick obviously made an impression in the army and rose through the ranks, reaching Lieutenant by the time the Armistice was declared in November 1918.

Lieutenant Tugwell remained overseas when the war ended and was based in Cologne. In March 1919, he returned home on leave, staying with his sister, Constance, who lived in Guildford, Surrey. It was here that he fell ill and here that he passed away, breathing his last on 2nd March 1919. He was just 30 years old.

Frederick William Tugwell was brought back to West Sussex for burial – he lies at rest in the cemetery of his home village, Cuckfield.

A mystery surrounds Frederick’s next of kin. His medal record suggests that it was his widow – Mrs FW Tugwell – who applied for that recognition. The address given for her is the same as for Constance. The newspaper report of his death gives no mention of a widow, only that he died at his sister’s home. There is also no clear evidence for Frederick getting married, although this may have been lost to the passage of time. His widow may, of course, have been living with her sister-in-law, but again, this cannot be confirmed either way.

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

Private William Haylor

Leave a comment
Private William Haylor

William Charles Haylor was born in the summer of 1870, in the West Sussex village of Cuckfield. He was one of eight children to agricultural labour Michael Haylor and his wife, Betsy. Michael passed away in 1886 and, with children to raise, his widow took in washing to earn money.

William found work as a farm labourer and, by the time of the 1901 census was living in a cottage at Beech Farm in the village, with his mother, younger sisters, one brother-in-law and six nieces and nephews.

On 25th October 1905, William married Florence Linstead. She was a carter’s daughter from South London, and it is not exactly clear how they met. It seems likely, though, that Florence had taken work on one of the estates in the Cuckfield area. The couple exchanged vows at St Antony’s Church in Florence’s home town, Nunhead, before settling down back in West Sussex.

When war came to Europe, William was keen to play his part. He enlisted in the Royal Sussex Regiment on 9th November 1914 and was assigned to the No.6 Supernumerary Company of the 2nd/4th Battalion. This was a territorial force, set in place for those older volunteers keen to serve King and Country.

Private Haylor’s time in the army was to be brief, however, as at his medical he was found to be medically unfit for military service. No further details are available, but it meant that William had spent just 82 days in the army.

At this point, William’s trail goes cold. He returned home, and presumably continued in his previous line of work. Again, however, the status quo was not to continue for long. He passed away at home, through causes unknown, on Christmas Day, 25th December 1915. He was 45 years of age.

William Charles Haylor was laid to rest in the cemetery in his home village, Cuckfield. He was accorded a military funeral.

Commonwealth War Graves, East Surrey Regiment, Great War, history, Labour Corps, Middlesex, photography, Private, story, Sussex, unknown, war, Wiltshire

Private Thomas Perrett

Leave a comment
Private Thomas Perrett

Thomas William Perrett was born in October 1878, the seventh of eight children to Lewin and Ann Perrett. Lewin was an agricultural labourer from Wiltshire, and it was in Aldbourn, near Marlborough, that the family were raised.

Initially finding work as a farm labourer, Thomas was soon drawn to the bright lights and big city. By the early 1900s he had moved to London, and it was here that he met, and in 1909 married, Mary Sterry, a labourer’s daughter from Middlesex. The couple went on to have three children, Elsie, Rose and Alice.

Thomas, by this point, had found work on the railways: the 1911 census records him as a railway porter, presumably at Paddington Railway Station, which was within a few minutes’ walk of where the Perrett family were living.

War came to Europe, and Thomas was keen to play his part. Full details of his service are not available, but he enlisted in the East Surrey Regiment, where he was assigned to the 2nd/5th Battalion. This was a second line unit, and Private Perrett remained on home soil for the duration of the war.

This territorial role was reinforced when he transferred across to the 696th Agricultural Company of the Labour Corps. Details of his work are not available, but it seems likely that he was assigned to farm work in the mid-Sussex area.

This too is where Private Perrett remained after the war and where, on 24th February 1919, he was to pass away. Details of his death are vague and the cause is unknown, but he was 40 years of age.

Thomas William Perrett was laid to rest in the cemetery in Cuckfield, West Sussex.

Coldstream Guards, Commonwealth War Graves, Great War, Guardsman, Hertfordshire, history, illness, photography, story, Sussex, war

Guardsman Sydney Proctor

Leave a comment
Guardsman Sydney Proctor

Sydney Francis Proctor was born in the autumn of 1886 in the Hertfordshire town of Bushey. The middle of three children, his parents were George and Annie Proctor. George was a stationary engine driver, and Sydney found work at a local iron foundry – possibly working alongside his father – when he left school.

This was not to be Sydney’s long term career, however, as, by the time of the 1911 census, he had moved to West Sussex and settled in Cuckfield, near Haywards Heath. By this time he was working as a gardener, and was employed at the nearby Borde Hill estate.

It is likely that Sydney had made the move to Sussex a few years earlier, as the same document confirms that he was married to a London-born woman called Florence, who was five years his senior. The couple would go on to have a daughter, Frances, who was born in December 1912.

Sydney’s wartime service is a little sketchy. He enlisted in the Coldstream Guards in November 1914, and was assigned to the 4th Battalion. While full details of his service are not available, Guardsman Proctor certainly served overseas, and may have seen some of the fiercest fighting of the conflict, at Loos, Ypres and the Somme.

Guardsman Proctor survived the conflict, but paid a price. In October 1918, he was medically discharged from military service, as he was suffering from aortic regurgitation – a heart complaint. He returned home to Sussex, but this respite was not to be for long. Sydney passed away on 17th July 1919, at the age of 32 years old.

Sydney Francis Proctor was laid to rest in the cemetery of his adopted home town, Cuckfield.