Aylburton Memorial Hall

Aylburton Memorial Institute. To the Glory Of God and in Undying Remembrance of our Sons, Brothers & Companions who gave their Lives For us In the Great War, 1914-1919. Remember. We will remember them 1914-2014. Also 1939-1945. Seek peace and ensue it. "Let those who come after see to it that their names are not forgotten" http://www.aylburtonvillagehall.org.uk/honour.html

Great War MacArthur BALLINGER Raynor CHARLES Arther ELLIS Rosser GILLHAM George HADDOCK Henry HARRIS William KEMBRY Bert KNIGHT James MORSE William PEARCE William POWELL Henry ROBINS Charles SEABRIGHT Percy STEPHENS Macarthur Ballinger. 1893–1918 Able Seaman R/1102 Drake Battalion 63rd (Royal Naval) Division. Macarthur Ballinger was the 24 year old son of farmer Edward Dennis Ballinger and his wife, Norfolk-born Rosa May Skinner, from Lodge Farm, Aylburton. Arthur’s mother died when he was only 19 days old, and his father, Edward, married Rosa’s cousin, Alice Skinner, in 1895. He worked on his father’s farm before enlisting in the Royal Navy in April 1917. Arthur was originally with Howe Battalion, a RN infantry unit based in France, from September 1917, but was invalided back to England in February 1918 suffering from trench fever. Following hospital treatment he was sent back to France, joining Drake Battalion on May 21st 1918. He was killed in action on 21st August 1918 and is buried at Achiet-le-Grand Communal Cemetery Extension. Raynor Henry Leonard Charles. 1896–1917. Royal Navy Able Seaman J 47206 Raynor Charles was the 20 year old son of tinplate worker Leonard George Charles and his wife Matilda Howells, from Aylburton who were married in 1894. Raynor was a tin-plate worker from the age of 14 till he joined the GWR in March 1915. When enlisting with the Royal Navy in December 1915 his record shows that he had been employed as a fireman. He joined HMS Vala on May 1st 1917. On 20th August 1917 it was torpedoed and sunk about 120 miles south-west of the Scilly Isles by German submarine UB-54. The submarine’s war diary indicates survivors made it to the boats, but it appears they were lost in the weather conditions following. Raynor has no known grave and is remembered on the Plymouth Naval Memorial. Arthur Ellis. 1890–1918. Private PLY/2459(S) 1st Royal Marines Battalion, Royal Naval Division Arthur Ellis was the 28 year old son of mason, Arthur Ellis, and his wife Laura, from Church Road, Aylburton. He was employed as a baker before joining the Marines. Posted to France, he died from his wounds on June 1st, 1918, and is buried in Etaples Military Cemetery Extension, France. There is a memorial tablet in the Aylburton Methodist Chapel which reads: “To the Glory of God, and in sacred memory of Arthur Ellis, who was killed by a bomb when in hospital suffering from a fever, during the Great War 1914–1918, aged 28 years. One of the pioneers of Methodism in Aylburton. Greater love hath no man than this.” Evan Rosser Gillham. 1890–1919. Colour Sergeant 14032 11th Battalion Royal Welsh Fusiliers Evan Gillham, the 28 year old son of tinplate works manager, Richard Gillham, and his wife Ada, was born at Aylburton in 1890. Before enlisting in the Welsh Fusiliers, Evan was a clerk in a tinplate works and living at Whitchurch near Cardiff. Two of his brothers also joined up, Percy in the RFA, and Cyril in the Welsh Fusiliers. Evan died in the UK in March 1919 and is believed to be buried in Whitchurch cemetery. George Lionel Haddock. 1893–1917 Private 41228 Suffolk Regiment 4th Battalion formerly of the R.A.S.C George Haddock was the 24 year old son of Aylburton collier William Haddock, and his wife Caroline Collins, who were married in 1886. The couple had six children, all born at Aylburton. The 1911 census records George at home in Albert Street, Lydney, helping his mother and sisters operate a small brewery, but his father and eldest brother, William, had moved to the Rhondda Valley in South Wales, looking for work. The family had settled at Blaenrhondda, Treherbert, in Glamorganshire, when George enlisted in the R.A.S.C. at Pentre. He was serving with the Suffolk Regiment when he died from his wounds on May 30th, 1917, and is buried at Sunken Road Cemetery, Boisleux, St. Mark. Henry (Harry) Stoppard Harris. 1898–1918. Private 51871 B Company 8th (Service) Battalion Gloucestershire Regiment He was the 20 year old son of Aylburton farmer, James Harris and his wife Mary Ann Hewlett. The couple had three sons and a daughter. James Harris was farming at Pool Farm in 1901 and 1911 but was only 48 years old when he died in 1912. The family then moved to nearby Lodge Farm where his eldest son, 17 year old Joseph Harris (1895-1976), and his younger brother, Henry Stoppard Harris (1898-1918), helped their mother run the farm. Henry (Harry) enlisted in the 8th Battalion of the Gloucestershire Regiment. He was killed in action on October 21st 1918, only three weeks before the Armistice, and is buried at Romeries Communal Cemetery extension. William James Kembry. 1886–1914. Guardsman 12192 1st Battalion Grenadier Guards William Kembry was born in Weston-super-Mare. He was the 28 year old son of William and Mary Kembry from Bristol, and husband of Edith Cracknell who he married in Bristol in 1909. A grocer’s porter at Aylburton in 1911, and father of two children, Beatrice (1910), and William James (1914), he joined the Grenadier Guards at Bristol in 1914. William was killed in Flanders on October 25th 1914 and is commemorated on the Ypres Menin Gate Memorial. His widow Edith married Aylburton widower Thomas Hoskins, at Lydney in April 1919. Bertram Knight. c1889–1916. Private 23303 10th Battalion Welsh Fusiliers (Machine Gunner) He was the 29 year old son of Aylburton shipwright, Robert Knight, and his wife Sophia Walker. The couple were widower and widow, both with children, when marrying at Lydney in 1888. Baptised Sydney Hewlett B. Knight in 1889, and registered as Sidney Hubert B. Knight, he was more commonly known as Bert. He married Daisy F. Morley at Paddington, London, in 1910, and was employed as a tinplate worker at Pontymister, near Newport, South Wales, in 1911. Bert enlisted with the Welsh Fusiliers in February 1915, and was killed in action on March 3rd 1915. His home address was then given as Stockwell Cottage, Aylburton. He is commemorated on the Ypres Memorial (Menin Gate) Panel 22. James Morse. 1894–1916. 12302 Lance Corporal 8th Battalion, Gloucestershire Regiment He was the 22 year old son of Henry Morse and his wife Elizabeth Baker, who were married at Drybrook in 1883. The couple, with three of their children, migrated to America around 1890. Two more sons, James (1894), and Henry (1896) were born there. The family returned to the UK and settled at Cottage Farm, Alvington in 1899 where Henry worked as a collier. Local records show that his two youngest American born sons, James and Henry, were baptised in November that year. From 1902 until 1914 Henry (Boxer) Morse was the landlord of the Traveller’s Rest on Aylburton Common. Local papers show he received at least two summonses for serving drinks outside of licensing hours. In September 1914 20 year old James enlisted in the Gloucestershire Regiment. He was killed in action on July 3rd 1916 and is commemorated on the Thiepval Memorial. William Frank Pearce. 1893–1918. Private 201291. 1/4th Battalion Welsh Regiment William Pearce was the 25 year old son of Staffordshire born iron moulder, James Pearce, who married Mary Ann Sullivan at Lydney in 1873. From 1901 the family had moved to Great Western Terrace, Llanelly in South Wales, where James was employed by the same company, Richard Thomas, as a moulder. During WW1 his Lydney born son, William, who worked in the same tinplate works, joined the Welsh Regiment. He was killed during action in Iraq on March 4th 1918 and is buried in the Baghdad (North Gate) War Cemetery. William Powell. 1882–1916. Private 26893 14th Battalion Worcestershire Regiment William Powell was baptised at Aylburton in 1882, he was the eldest son of railway platelayer, James Powell, and his wife, Mary Ann Haddock, who were married at Lydney earlier that year and lived on Aylburton Common. William enlisted in the Worcestershires on 17th November 1915 and was killed in action a year later, November 14th 1916. He is buried at Ancre British Cemetery, Beaumont-Hamel. Harry Robins. 1892–1916. Private 4274 13th Division Cycling Corps Harry Robins was the 24 year old son of blacksmith’s labourer, Henry Colwell Robins (1854-1903), and his wife Edith Mary Addis (1861-1919). He was working as a colliery engine driver when he enlisted with 7th (Service) Battalion, Gloucestershire Regiment, at Lydney in August 1914. He transferred to the 13th Division Cycling Corps on January 11th 1915 and was part of the 13th Division Signals Corps attached to the Mediterranean Expeditionary Force, when he arrived at Basra, Iraq, in February 1916. Harry was killed in action on April 23rd 1916. He is commemorated on the Basra Memorial. Charles Edward Seabright. 1887–1917. Acting Bombardier 78359 Royal Garrison Artillery 227 Siege Battery. Charles Seabright was born at Cinderford in 1887, the son of Police Sergeant Hubert Seabright (1863-1933), and a Littledean policeman’s daughter, Annie Trinder, who were married at Cheltenham in 1884. A telegraph boy in 1901, when he enlisted in the RGA Charles was employed as a brewery clerk and had married Kate Wilcox (b1890) at Lydney in February 1910. The couple had one child, Irene Kathleen, born 27th November 1910, and lived at ‘Glenthorne’, Aylburton. He arrived in France on January 7th 1917. In April Charles was injured near Arras and taken to No.8 Casualty Station. He died from his wounds on 20th April 1917 and is buried at Duisans British Cemetery, Etrun. Percival James Stephens. 1887–1917. Lance Corporal 56225 2nd Battalion Royal Welsh Fusiliers Percival Stephens was the 27 year old son of grocer James Stephens (1844-1898) from Chepstow, and Mary Ann Davis from Aylburton, who were married in the Chepstow District in 1889 (Mar Qtr). James died in 1898 and Mary Jane and Percy are recorded on the 1901 census living at her parent’s home in Aylburton. In 1911 she and her mother were now living with Percy in Abercarn, South Wales, where he was employed as a clerk in a tinplate works. L/Cpl Percival James Stephens was killed in action on May 28th 1917 and is buried at Boisleux-au-Mont Communal Cemetery, St. Marc, France. 1939-1945 Alan BARRATT Gilbert HUGHES Tim LOGAN Albert POWELL John TAYLOR James DAY http://www.aylburtonvillagehall.org.uk/honour.html