Tag Archives: Yorkshire

Commonwealth War Graves, Great War, history, injury, Kings Royal Rifle Corps, Oxfordshire, photography, Private, Second Lieutenant, Somerset, Somerset Light Infantry, story, suicide, war, Yorkshire

Second Lieutenant Cedric Pepper

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Second Lieutenant Cedric Pepper

Cedric William Pepper was born in 1895 in South Kirkby, Yorkshire. He was the middle of three children to William and Harriette Pepper. William was a colliery owner from Leeds, and the family lived in some comfort in Rawdon Hill in Wharfdale. The 1901 census records show that they employed a governess, cook, two housemaids, a kitchen maid and a page.

By the time of the next census, in 1911, the Pepper family had moved to Shipton in Oxfordshire, where they lived in the 27-room Shipton Court. Cedric, by this time, was still studying, having been taught at Winchester College, where he lasted only a year, Tonbridge School, and then Worcester College in Oxford.

When war broke out, he had taken time away from his studies, and was working on a ranch in Rhodesia (present-day Zimbabwe). He returned to Britain at the start of the conflict and enlisted in the King’s Royal Rifle Corps. Assigned to the 2nd Battalion, Private Pepper arrived in France in November 1914, and was wounded in his thigh the summer of 1915.

Private Pepper returned to Britain to recuperate and, when he had recovered, he was given a commission in the 3rd Battalion of the Somerset Light Infantry. It was while he was training in Oxfordshire that the now Second Lieutenant Pepper met his end.

The evidence at the inquest… suggested that the death from a bullet wound… was accidental.

Second-Lieutenant William Eric Warburton… stated that early last week Lieutenant Pepper told him he was in some difficulty with a woman, but he did not explain it. Lieutenant Warburton did not think that this caused him to take his life. In his opinion Lieutenant Pepper knew nothing of the working of an automatic pistol he possessed.

The medical evidence was that a bullet entered the centre of the forehead. The doctor said that if the wound was self-inflicted it was quite possible that it was accidental.

The jury returned a verdict of Death from a bullet from an automatic pistol, but that there was no evidence to show how the wound was inflicted.

Central Somerset Gazette: Friday 29th October 1915

Second Lieutenant Pepper died from the bullet wound on 21st October 1915. He was just 20 years of age.

Pepper Family Memorial

Cedric William Pepper’s family were, by this time, living in Redlynch House, near Bruton, Somerset. He was cremated, and his ashes immured in the wall of St Peter’s Church in the hamlet.

Second Lieutenant Cedric Pepper
(from findagrave.com)

In researching Cedric’s life, there is a definite sense of a young man desperately looking to please his father. A successful Yorkshire colliery owner, he may have expected more from his oldest son, a drop out from Winchester College, possibly sent to Southern Africa to find himself. While an immediate return to Britain to serve his country would have been commonplace, the suggestion of difficulty with a woman and the subsequent accident with his gun just adds to the sense of a need for Cedric to not disappoint his father.

Captain, Commonwealth War Graves, Great War, history, illness, London, photography, Royal Horse Artillery, Royal Warwickshire Regiment, Second Lieutenant, Somerset, story, war, Yorkshire

Captain William Poulett

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Captain William Poulett

William John Lydston Poulett was born on 11th September 1883, in Belsize Park, London. The oldest child to William Poulett, 6th Earl Poulett, and his third wife, Rosa, William Jr was known by the title Viscount Hinton.

When William’s father died in January 1899, a battle ensued for the title of the 7th Earl Poulett. The 6th Earl had married his first wife, Elizabeth, in 1849, separating from her within a couple of months, when he learnt that she was pregnant. The alleged father was Captain William Turnour Granville, and when the 6th Earl died, Elizabeth’s son, another William Poulett, claimed the right to take the title. In July 1903, the judge decreed that William and Rosa’s son held the valid claim, and William John Lydston Poulett succeeded him, becoming the 7th Earl. At this point, he was living in Ayston, Rutland, expanding his education and boarding with a Clerk in Holy Orders.

In 1908, William married Sylvia Storey. She was the daughter of actor and dancer Fred Storey, and was herself an actress and Gaiety girl. Given Earl Poulett’s status, it seems this might not have been the most appropriate of matches, as a contemporary newspaper reported:

Another marriage alliance of the stage with the aristocracy, and one of the most remarkable of them all, was brought about yesterday by a quiet ceremony at St James’ Church, Piccadilly, uniting Earl Poulett and Miss Sylvia Lilian Storey, the well-known comedienne.

Besides contracting parties, there were only one or two persons present, including the family solicitor and Lady Violet Wingfield, sister of the bridegroom [who was also a Gaiety girl]. There were no bridesmaids.

Before the ceremony, some consternation was caused by an untoward event. The wedding ring was dropped, and there were some perturbing moments while a scrambling hunt was made for it on the floor. Finally it was discovered and pounced upon by the verger.

The time and place of the ceremony had been kept quite a secret, and the bride and bridegroom were on their way from London before the news of their marriage became known. The sudden announcement which was then made greatly enhanced the romance of the affair.

The Earl is just twenty-five years of age, and the new Countess is eighteen…

Shields Daily News: Thursday 3rd September 1908

The secret nuptials couple went on to have two children – George and Bridget – and, by the time of the 1911 census, the family were living in some luxury at Hinton House in Hinton St George, Somerset.

William had also had a distinguished military career by this point. In 1903 he received a commission as Second Lieutenant in the 4th Battalion of the Royal Welch Fusiliers, before being transferred to the 4th Highland Light Infantry.

On 26th February 1913, he was recommissioned, as a Second Lieutenant in the Warwickshire Royal Horse Artillery and, when war broke out, he was sent to France. By November 1915, he had been promoted to Captain, but after three years on the Western Front, his health was beginning to suffer.

Captain Poulett was transferred back to Britain, and assigned to the Royal Warwickshire Regiment. By 1918, he was serving as part of the Anti-Aircraft Corps in Middlesbrough, when he contracted pneumonia. This was to take his life, and he breathed his last on 11th July 1918, at the age of just 34 years old.

William John Lydston Poulett, 7th Earl Poulett, was brought back to Somerset for burial. He was laid to rest in the graveyard of St George’s Church in Hinton St George.

Captain William Poulett
(from ancestry.co.uk)

William’s death meant that his nine-year-old son, George, inherited his title and his £187,200 estate (worth £8.2m today). The 8th Earl served during the Second World War, working as an engineer at Woolwich Arsenal and becoming an Associate of the Institute of Railway Signal Engineers and the Institute of British Engineers.

George married three times: he divorced his first wife, Oriel, in 1941; outlived his second wife, Olga, who died in 1961; and was survived by his third wife, Margaret, when he passed away in 1973. When he died, with no children, all of his titles became extinct.

Commonwealth War Graves, Great War, history, photography, Private, Somerset, story, unknown, war, Worcestershire Regiment, Yorkshire

Private Herbert Cleal

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Private Herbert Cleal

Herbert Henry Cleal was born on 6th November 1899, in the Somerset village of Hambridge. The tenth of twelve children, his parents were Daniel and Emily Cleal.

Daniel was a cowman on a farm, and it is likely that Herbert would have started in agricultural labouring, had war not intervened.

Full details of Herbert’s military service are not available, although it is clear that he had enlisted in the Worcestershire Regiment by the summer of 1918. By this point in the war, Private Cleal’s battalion – the 2nd/8th Battalion – was already in France, although, according to his records, it does not appear as if he saw any service overseas himself.

The only other record for Herbert is his entry in the Army Register of Soldiers’ Effects. This confirms that he passed away at Bradford War Hospital on 1st January 1919. The cause of his passing is not noted, but he had just turned 19 years of age.

Herbert Henry Cleal was brought back to Somerset for burial. He was laid to rest in the graveyard of St James-the-Less Church in his home village of Hambridge.

Commonwealth War Graves, Derbyshire, Great War, Hampshire, history, Kent, killed in action, photography, Royal Navy, Stoker, story, war, Yorkshire

Stoker Anthony Eames

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Stoker Anthony Eames

Anthony Eames was born on 29th October 1876 in the village of Newhall, Derbyshire. He was one of four children to James and Mary Eames, although Mary passed away in 1880, not long after Anthony’s younger brother was born. James remarried, and he and his new wife (and possibly his late wife’s sister), Theresa Barlow went on to have twelve children of their own.

James was a coal miner, and while Anthony initially followed in his father’s footsteps, he sought bigger and better things. In September 1896, just short of his twentieth birthday, he joined the Royal Navy as a Stoker 2nd Class. His service records show that he was 5ft 3.5ins (1.61m) tall, had brown hair, grey eyes and a fresh complexion. The document also noted that he had tattoos on both of his arms.

Stoker Eames’ initial posting was at HMS Victory, the Royal Naval Dockyard in Portsmouth, Hampshire. He spend a year there, honing his skill, before being assigned to HMS Powerful in September 1897. Three months later, he was transferred to the cruiser HMS Alacrity and, over the remainder of his twelve years’ service, he worked on eight further vessels, rising to the rank of Stoker 1st Class in the process.

It was during this time that Anthony met and married Frances Pelley, a young woman from Portsmouth. The couple went on to have three children and, when Stoker Eames was stood down from active service at the end of his contract in 1908, the family moved to Sheffield. Anthony found employment in the mines again and the family settled in to a small terraced house in the then village of Darnall.

The sea continued to call to Anthony, though, and, on 8th March 1912, he re-enlisted. For the next couple of years he was based at HMS Victory, but when war broke out he was transferred to the battleship HMS Bulwark.

Stoker Eames was on board Bulwark when, on the morning of 26th November 1914, an explosion ripped through the ship, tearing it apart and sinking it. In all 741 souls were lost, Anthony amongst them. He was 38 years of age.

The majority of those who died in the explosion aboard HMS Bulwark were buried in a mass grave in Woodland Cemetery, Gillingham, Kent. Anthony Eames’s body, however, had been identified, and so he was laid to rest in a marked grave in the cemetery.

Commonwealth War Graves, Denbighshire, Driver, Great War, history, photography, Royal Field Artillery, story, unknown, Wales, war, Yorkshire

Driver James Roberts

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Driver James Roberts

James Roberts was born in 1885 in Llangollen, Denbighshire. The youngest of three children, he was the son of Elias and Winifred Roberts. Elias was a builder’s labourer and, while James initially went into this line of work when he left school, by the time of the 1911 census, he was listed as being employed as a gamekeeper.

War broke out across Europe, and James was there to play his part for King and Country. Full details of his military service are not available, but he enlisted in the Royal Field Artillery, and was assigned to C Battery of the 161st Brigade. This was a Howitzer unit, and, as a Driver, James would have been involved in leading the horses pulling the cannons to where they needed to be.

There is no actual confirmation that James served overseas. He was, however, awarded the Victory and British Medals for his service. Driver Roberts survived the war, but again, details of what actually happened to him are lost to time.

What can be confirmed is that, by 1919, James had been admitted to the Wharncliffe War Hospital in Sheffield, and this is where, on 27th November that year, he passed away. He was just 34 years of age.

James Roberts was brought back to Llangollen for burial. He was laid to rest in the town’s Fron Cemetery.

Commonwealth War Graves, Cornwall, Devon, Devonshire Regiment, Great War, history, illness, injury, Lieutenant, photography, Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers, story, war, Yorkshire

Lieutenant Arthur Wellacott

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Lieutenant Arthur Wellacott

Arthur Cecil Baber Wellacott was born the summer of 1897, in the village of Bradworthy, North Devon. Ond of seven children, his parents were William and Ada Wellacott. William was the parish vicar and with his status came additional support for the family.

The 1901 census saw the vicarage employ three members of staff, and William was hosting two students as well as his and Ada’s own children. Ten years later, with Arthur and his younger brother William, boarding at a school in Bude, Cornwall, the Wellacott retinue remained in place.

On leaving boarding school, Arthur studied at Kelly College in Tavistock and, at around the same time his father took up a new post in Totnes. When Arthur left the college, he joined the 7th (Cyclist) Battalion of the Devonshire Regiment. He was subsequently given a commission in th 3rd Battalion of the Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers, and was based in Londonderry.

At Easter 1916, Lieutenant Wellacott took part in quelling the rebellion in Dublin, and was subsequently sent to France. In the battle for Contalmaison his platoon was gassed and buried, and Arthur was badly injured. Suffering from shell shock, the experience had a lasting impact on him “and from that time his health had given cause for anxiety…” [Western Morning News: Tuesday 18th February 1919]

Lieutenant Wellacott returned to England and he was billeted near Leeds. During the winter of 1918/1919, he contracted pneumonia, and was admitted to the Drax Hospital. Sadly, the condition was to prove too much for his already damaged lungs and he died on 16th February 1919. He was just 21 years of age.

Arthur Cecil Baber Wellacott was brought back to Devon for burial. He was laid to rest in the cemetery in Totnes, Devon.

Commonwealth War Graves, Great War, history, illness, Kent, photography, Royal Naval Reserve, Stoker, story, war, Yorkshire

Stoker Peter Higgins

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Stoker Peter Higgins

Peter Higgins was born in Thornaby, North Yorkshire, on 23rd January 1887. His parents were William and Catherine (Kate) Higgins, but of them there is very little information.

What seems likely that Peter would have had some experience with boats as, on 26th May 1909, he enlisted in the Royal Naval Reserve. His service records show that he was 5ft 7ins (1.70m) tall and was described as having blue eyes and a pale complexion. He was also noted as having a scar over his left eye and another on his left thigh.

When war broke out, Peter was officially called for duty and, over the next couple of years, he served as a Stoker on the battleship HMS St Vincent. The ship patrolled the North Sea, and would later be involved in the Battle of Jutland.

Stoker Higgins, however, was back on dry land by that point, having been assigned to HMS Pembroke, the Royal Naval Dockyard in Chatham, Kent. Peter had fallen ill with a gastric ulcer, and tragically, this was to prove fatal. He passed away on 16th February 1916, at the age of just 29 years old.

Peter Higgins was laid to rest in the naval section of Woodlands Cemetery in Gillingham, Kent, not far from the dockyard that was to prove his last posting.

Cheshire, Commonwealth War Graves, Glamorganshire, Great War, history, illness, Lance Corporal, photography, Private, story, war, Yorkshire

Lance Corporal Colin Clarke

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Lance Corporal Colin Clarke

Colin Lewis Clarke was born in the spring of 1879 in Cardiff, South Wales. He was one of seven children to Bernard and Elizabeth Clarke. Bernard was a carpenter, but after Elizabeth died in 1886, he took over the running of the Windsor Hotel in Penarth.

When he left school, Colin found work as a clerk. Bernard also died in 1908, and the 1911 census records Colin and his brother Thomas living with his sister, Beatrice. They were sharing the house with Beatrice’s second husband, Charles, and her six children from her first marriage in the Cheshire village of Poulton.

Colin’s trail goes tantalisingly cold at this point. When war broke out, he enlisted to play his part, joining the 16th (Transport Workers) Battalion of the York and Lancaster Regiment by the summer of 1916. This troop was a territorial force, and Private – and then Lance Corporal – Clarke was based in the Yorkshire Dales.

At some point during the autumn Colin fell ill, and was admitted to the Military Hospital in Middlesbrough. His condition is unclear, but he was to succumb to it, passing away on 5th November 1916, the age of 37 years old.

Colin Lewis Clarke’s body was brought back to Wales for burial. He was laid to rest in the graveyard of St Augustine’s Church in Penarth, Glamorganshire.

Commonwealth War Graves, Great War, Gunner, Hampshire, history, illness, Kent, photography, Royal Field Artillery, story, war, Yorkshire

Gunner William Wyborn

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Gunner William Wyborn

William Aubrey Wyborn was born on 15th November 1897, the middle of three children to farmer-cum-greengrocer-cum-butcher Henry Wyborn and his wife, Esther. The family lived in the Kent village of Tilmanstone, not far from Deal, but soon moved to Faversham in the north of the county.

William proved to be an astute student. After being a pupil at Faversham District Schools, he gained a scholarship to the towns Grammar School. He spent six years there, and proved to be a studious pupil, gaining a prize for maths. He was then granted a scholarship to the Sheffield School of Engineering, and, while studying for his degree there, war broke out.

William joined the West Lancashire Royal Field Artillery in June 1916 and was sent to Aldershot for training. sadly, Gunner Wyborn’s career was to be cut short – while training, he contracted diphtheria and pneumonia, passing away from a combination of the illnesses on 3rd November 1916. He was just short of his 19th birthday.

William Aubrey Wyborn was brought back to Kent for burial. He lies at rest in the family plot in the Faversham Borough Cemetery.

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

Private Alonsa Dixon

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Private Alonsa Dixon

Alonsa Dixon was born in Kingston-upon-Hull, Yorkshire, in 1887, the oldest of seven children to Alonsa and Caroline Dixon. Alonsa Sr was a billiard marker, who raised his family in a small house near the city centre.

Alonsa Jr found work as an errand boy for a grocer when he left school, but went on to find work as a jobbing gardener. By the time of the 1911 census, he had moved out of home, and was boarding with cab driver George Gill and his family.

In April 1912, he married Edith Alice Gill. Trixie, as she was also known, was George’s daughter, and it seems likely that romance blossomed after Alonsa moved in. The couple went on to have a son, also called Alonsa, who was born the following year.

War was coming to Europe, and Alonsa was in one of the first waves of men to volunteer for King and Country. He enlisted in the East Yorkshire Regiment, and was assigned to the 13th Battalion. His service records show that he was 5ft 7.5ins (1.71m) tall, and weighed 144lbs (65.3kg). He was noted as being of good physical development.

Initially serving on home soil, Private Dixon was eventually dispatched overseas, arriving in Egypt in December 1915. Having spent just under three months in North Africa, he was moved to France in March the following year.

Alonsa had some health issues by this point, and was suffering from Bright’s Disease, or nephritis (inflammation of the kidneys). He was treated in a field hospital in Abbeville, but subsequently medically evacuated back to England for further care.

Private Dixon was admitted to the Monastery Hospital in Wincanton, Somerset in April 1916, but his condition proved too severe, and he passed away on 10th July 1916. He was just 29 years of age.

Alonsa Dixon was laid to rest in the cemetery of the town in which he passed away, Wincanton.

Private Alonsa Dixon
(from findagrave.com)