Upton St. Leonards

located just outside the entrance to St. Leonard's Church.

 

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"In grateful memory of the men from this Parish who gave their lives in the War 1914 - 1919"

 

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R. I. P.

 

1914

 

Corp 8064 Henry Panter

01.11.14 Menin Gate

1st Battalion, Gloucestershire Regt

 

Pte 8029 George Avery

07.11.14 Menin Gate

1st Battalion, Gloucestershire Regt

 

1915

 

Pte 8136 Arthur Edward Ballinger (possible match)

18.02.15 Le Touret Memorial

1st Battalion, Gloucestershire Regt

 

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Lieut-Col Arthur Percival Dearman Birchall

24.04.15 Menin Gate

Royal Fusiliers (attached to 4th Canadian Infantry Battalion)

 

"On the 23rd April, 12.30am the battalion advanced from Vlamertinghe, crossed the Yser canal by pontoon bridge, and were then halted around 4.30am, 1200 yards west of Bricklen(?Pilkem?) where the Germans were entrenched. The advance continued at 5.30am, 'B' Company taking the lead as they advanced to within 400 yards of the enemy trenches. The battalion were under heavy artillery and machine gun fire all the while. When the commander of 'C' company was wounded, Birchall stepped in to take command of the company. He was killed at 7pm on 23rd April.

That day, the battalion suffered 18 casualties amongst the officers, and 487 amongst other ranks."

 

Wisden (1915) obituary: "LIEUT-COL. ARTHUR PERCIVAL DEARMAN BIRCHALL, Colonel of the 4th Battalion (Infantry), was born in 1877 and killed near Ypres on April 23. He was not in the Eleven at Eton or Oxford, but was a useful cricketer and played much in regimental matches."

 

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Pte 7739 Walter Ireland (probable match)

10.05.15 Menin Gate

2nd Battalion, Gloucestershire Regt

 

Pte 9974 Ernest Phelps (probable match)

12.05.15 Menin Gate

2nd Battalion, Gloucestershire Regt

 

1916

 

Lieut Ewen Arthur Cameron (probable match)

16.02.15 Menin Gate

49th Brigade, Royal Field Artillery

 

2nd Lieut Rupert Ancrum Evans (probable match)

25.01.16 Harpley, Worcs

3rd Battalion, West Yorkshire (Prince of Wales's Own) Regt

 

Pte 240652 Henry Hopkins

05.04.17 (?) Venduile (La Paurelle, Ronssoy)

1/5th Battalion, Gloucestershire Regt

 

Trooper 3057 Arthur James Mourbey (probable match)

23.04.16 Kantara (probably killed or mortally wounded at Qatia)

1/1st Battalion, Royal Gloucestershire Hussars Yeomanry

 

Pte 18993 Edward Bailey (possible match)

09.07.16 Basra

7th Battalion, Gloucestershire Regt

 

Francis John Pring (no match)

 

Pte 8595 George Henry Miles (possible match)

16.07.16 Mericourt-l'Abbe, nr Albert

2nd Battalion, Royal Irish Fusiliers

 

Bombadier 25374 Daniel John Smith

31.07.16 Bray-sur-Somme

95th Siege Battery, Royal Garrison Artillery

 

Capt Edward Vivian Dearman Birchall D.S.O.

10.08.16 Etaples

Bucks Battalion, Oxford and Bucks Light Infantry

 

Pte 4235 Henry Isaac Tranter (probable match)

28.08.16 Authuille, nr Albert

1/5th Battalion, Gloucestershire Regt

 

1917

 

Pte 15015 William George Ridler

18.11.16 Grandcourt

'D' Company, 8th Battalion, Gloucestershire Regt

 

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Pte 607 William Francis Dyer

10.02.17 Warlencourt

Machine Gun Section, 21st Battalion, Australian Infantry, A.I.F.

 

Dyer was originally buried in an isolated grave near Le Sart, and then reinterred in September 1925 (I believe) to the cemetery at Warlencourt.

 

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Corporal 240851 Frederick John Chorley

17.05.17 Grevillers, nr Bapaume

1/5th Battalion, Gloucestershire Regt

 

Driver 832077 Arthur Edwin Barnard

28.05.17 Bailleul

1st Divisional Ammunition Column, Royal Field Artillery

 

Pte 5389 Luther Hardy

27.06.17 Dunkirk

Army Cyclists Corps

 

Pte 33883 Francis George Smith

27.06.17 Menin Gate

'D' Company, 8th Battalion, The Loyal North Lancashire Regt

 

Trooper 3985 Frederick George Wasley (possible match)

20.01.17 Brockworth, Glos

2/1st Battalion, Royal Gloucestershire Hussars Yeomanry

 

1918

 

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2nd Officer Theo Dashwood

20.01.18 Plymouth Naval Memorial

H.M. Fleet Messenger Spinel

 

He seems to have been travelling on HMS Louvain when she was sunk

 

"On January 20th, 1918, Louvain used as a troop transport, was torpedoed and sunk by the German submarine UC-22 (Carl Bünte) in the Kelos Strait, in the Aegean Sea." wrecksite

 

"Without warning she was struck by a torpedo ... As she sank, the death toll ran to 224; only 24 of those who lost their lives were from the Louvain’s own crew, while the rest were due for dispersal throughout the fleet."

A Story of a Petty Officer - Arthur Farrar

 

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Ewart Smith

 

Pte 18998 Alfred James Davis

18.04.18 Loos Memorial

'D' Company 2/5th Battalion, Gloucestershire Regt

 

Lionel Arthur Jackson (possible match)

 

John Weir

 

Henry Ridler

 

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Not listed on the Memorial

 

Pte 238008 R. C. Hooper

27.09.20 Upton St. Leonards

4th Battalion, Gloucestershire Regt

 

Pte 241270 William George Webb

25.06.21 Upton St. Leonards

2/5th Battalion, Gloucestershire Regt

 

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"The memorial's unveiling and dedication was performed on Sunday 8 August 1920, following a service in the church. Major Birchall, MP, carried out the unveiling."

Stephen's Study Room

 

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When I'm trying to find out anything about a person named on a war memorial, the first port of call is always the CWGC Roll of Honour.

 

I always search first by entering the town or village where it's located in the additional information box. The search returns a list of names, only some of which will be listed on the memorial. (The more I find, the quicker this part of the exercise becomes.) I'll also try searching on nearby villages, hamlet names to see if that brings more success.

 

Then I search on the remaining individual names. And try the full name given on the memorial ... just one forename ... then the other ... just the initials ... just one initial ... just the surname. The less common the name the better of course. Any additional info on the memorial, such as regiment or rank or a simple date, always helps.

 

If the name can be identified on the CWGC Roll, and confirmed by an address at or near the location of the memorial(found in the additional information given at the foot of the entry), then I can be almost 100% sure I've found the right person.

Unfortunately, there is often no definitive link to the memorial, and so I go on other clues such as an exact match on forenames, the fact that it's a Gloucestershire regiment perhaps, and then try to assess the likelihood of the match - possible, probable etc. If I cannot make a reasonable match, I don't record a link.

 

I will also try the National Archives Medal Index a) to see if the person actually served overseas, and b) to see if there's any other clue about the name, rank or regiment. If I can find no medal card, then there's a reasonable chance that the person did not serve overseas. I will always wander around the churchyard before leaving, looking for war graves, and, if I have time, looking at other headstones from the Great War period and shortly afterwards, for the personal inscriptions that people may have added for relatives who never came home.

 

If the person died in the UK before the creation of the Imperial War Graves Commision (later the CWGC), the family might well have placed a personal headstone over the grave of the deceased, and then there would be no entry in the CWGC Roll.

 

The 'best' memorials give details of rank and/or regiment. Here, at Upton St. Leonards I've been helped by the fact that the memorial records the names fallen in date order. (However, they haven't alway been correct.)

 

Increasingly, I've found that someone has already fully researched the names on their local war memorial. They've placed their findings in a folder, usually near a memorial tablet inside the church, for others to read. The amount of work that's gone into some of these is simply staggering.

Normally I take my photographs of the memorial and return home to do my own research. I only think afterwards, when I have a problem of identification, that it would be a good idea to return soon to see what help is available.

Anyone seriously interested in researching one particular person, should always look in the church first.

 

(Flickr and my internet connection are frustrating!!! Will return soon to rewrite this.)

 

All the stages above are just a starter to the really interesting bits. Finding out about what happened.

What it was really like in the years of war? I cannot remember a 4 year period in my lifetime which would have had an intensity similar to that of the Great War.

It is interesting to read personal accounts from those who were there, but 100 years later, I have found no such accounts for the names I've found on these local memorials. So it's a case of pulling together pieces of information from a variety of sources to try to understand what they, the people at the front AND the people at home, went througth

Done