THIS WEEK we look more closely at the remarkable information uncovered by Chas Townley about the lives of Stroud’s WW1 servicemen.

Chas documented the 14 brief, but compelling, biographies while researching a book on the WW1 soldiers interred in Stroud Parish Cemetery whose graves are maintained Commonwealth War Graves Commission.

By studying official family, medical and military records district councillor Chas have been able to provide us with a riveting social history of Stroud from a hundred years ago.

Many of the men and their families lived within the narrow confines of Stroud old town, their addresses featuring familiar names such as Church Street, Belle Vue, Acre Street and Middle Hill. 

As in the case of the first war casualty to be buried in Stroud Cemetery, Wilton Percy Cox, known as Percy, who lived on Acre Street with his parents and seven other family members.

Percy, listed as a brass finisher prior to the war, is described in his military records as nearly five foot six inches, with brown hair, blue eyes and a ‘fresh’ complexion.

In November 1914 he signed up with the Navy for 12 years and was posted to HMS Defiance in Plymouth, which at the time was the Navy’s Torpedo Training facility.

Less than two months after beginning his military service, in January 1915, Percy was invalided off the Defiance to the Royal Navy Hospital.  He died four days later.

Percy’s cause of death was pulmonary tuberculosis, a disease that he was probably had when he joined up, for which there was no effective treatment.

Errand boy Henry Walker was one of the first soldiers from the area to enlist following the declaration of war on August 4, 1914.

Although this may have been a patriotic act, the 22 year old’s impoverished circumstances could have played a significant role in his enlistment.

Records show that Eliza, Henry’s mother, was a ‘pedlar’, meaning that she would have supported her family by selling small items door to door.

Mother and son lived at a lodging house in Tower Hill, now known as Parliament Street, along with 23 lodgers and 6 other family members. 

One of the family members was Henry’s wife Helena, with whom he had one daughter born six months before he went into military service.

Henry died as part of the 2nd Gloucesters company in the rear trenches of Ypres, on May 9, less than two months after his second daughter was born.

The number of casualties from the intense fighting in Ypres on that day were staggering, too many for the battalion diarist to name, and aside from the named officer casualties, 140 members of the ‘other ranks’  were killed, wounded or listed as missing.

The final life explored this week is William Dick Orchard Webb who died in November 1918 after being posted to the Royal Army Medical Crops the year before.

He was 30 at the time of his enlistment, and married with three children. 

Interestingly, his records include the stamp of No.3 Recruiting Medical Board, based in Bristol, which raises the possibility that he was a conscript and sought exemption from military service.

Conscription and the associated local Military Service Tribunals were introduced on mainland Britain in early 1916, no official tribunal records survive, however conscripts would have been referred to the Horfield Depot, where he was seen.

Despite common misconception, the tribunals did not only deal with conscientious objectors, they also considered applications based on employment and family circumstances.

Whatever the outcome, William Webb was subsequently stationed in Cirencester, where his medical examination records describe him as: “Able to walk 5 miles and hear sufficiently for ordinary purposes. 

“Free from organic diseases, able to stand service in France, or in garrisons in the tropics.”

Three months later William died at a hospital in Bristol.

Rose, William’s wife, had died less than a month before, and their three young children became orphans.

William and Rose’s son, Robert, can be traced to Stoke Park Hospital, a a medical institution which has since been converted into flats and stands imposingly above the M5 motorway just north of Bristol. 

Robert’s occupation is stated as ‘incapacitated’, which would usually be used to describe someone with severe learning disabilities who has been institutionalised for life.

Kathleen and Lillian, Robert’s sisters lived in the ‘care of Mrs Loveday’ in Rodborogh. 

Andy Frusher, one of Kathleen’s grandchildren, still lives locally and was able to provide a happier ending to the tragic family story:  “I’ve always thought that William’s death was a tragedy, with a particularly nasty extra twist for my Nan and her siblings.

“Gramp was seen as ‘marrying below his standing’, because Nan was an orphan,” Andy explained. 

“But he married her anyway.”

Chas’s passion for history, and his careful documentation of the Stroud inhabitants who served in the the Great War, provides us with a devastating insight into the predominantly working class inhabitants of our town.

He hopes to publish all 14 of the biographies in his book Servicemen of the Great War buried in Stroud Cemetery, in 2018.