Research Cameos

During the course of my research over the years all episodes have been interesting but some do tend to stick in my mind.
There are just a few illustrated below.

Old Bill.

William Henry Mathews was born in Ilfracome in 1899. At the time of the outbreak of the Great War he was an apprentice Blacksmith at the Mansel Tinplate Works in Port Talbot.

He promptly volunteered and was embodied into the 5th Bn of the Devonshire Regiment. He found himself doing his basic training on the North West Frontier of India.By 1917 he was in Palestine. It was there he had a memorable encounter with a Turkish shell and a full latrine!!

Attached to the 62nd(West Riding) Division he fought on the Western Front from 1917. In 1918 he was awarded a Military Medal for crawling to and recovering four wounded men over the course of a day. Six weeks later, at Vaulx Vraicourt, although wounded himself he took charge of a machinegun, when the crew had been wounded, and held of a German advance.

When he was demobilized in February 1919 he had been wounded twice, gassed and decorated twice, finishing his career as an officer in the Royal North Devon Hussars. He was not yet 20 years old.

He returned to the Mansel Works and joined the Port Talbot Coastguard. During WW2 he was harbour master.

In the first New Year's Honours List after the war he was awarded the British Empire Medal for his war service. He dealt with stray mines by roping them, towing them out to sea and exploding them with a rifle shot.

Bill it was a pleasure to have known you!

1987

Tragic legacies of the
Great War.

 David Edgar Evans (above) was killed in action in 1917 during the 18th Welsh attack on Bourlon Wood. In 1918 his nephew was born and named after him, much to the dismay of his Sister in Law as she thought it was unlucky to name her son after someone who had died so tragically

David Edgar jr above, enlisted in the Royal Navy in 1939. He was killed in December 1940 when his ship was sunk at Sheerness by a magnetic mine.

Both men were born in the same house, went to the same school and chapel. Both men were the same age when they were killed and both men are commemorated on memorials to the missing.

The coincidence of war

For many years I have used the story of the two David Edgars to illustrate the tragedy and coincidence of war but recently something came to light which brought it home to me even more than their story.

In the early 1970's my father bought me a copy of 

"Leeds in the Great War".

I found it fascinating because it listed 10000 men from Leeds who enlisted and were either killed, died of wounds, disease or by accident. Six members of the Summerscales family were listed and Charles and Harry Vollans, my Grandfather's cousins. I needed to know their stories.

The book also related some details of the "Leed's Pals" Bn of the West Yorkshire Regiment. One individual story stood out for me, that of a Yorkshire Cricketer called Booth. His christian name was Major, so when he was commissioned he became Lieutenant Major Booth. He was killed on the first day of the battle of the Somme in July 1916. His body was not recovered until February 1917. His body was only identified by a silver cigarette case that had been engraved and presented to him. When I acted as a tourguide I visited his grave and related his story many times.

I discovered that a journalist had reported Booth's last century in The Bradford Telegraph and Argus. Sadly the young journalist Robert Derwent had  died on the same day, in the same sector as Booth, a remarkable coincidence.

In the last couple of years I have discovered that Robert was one of two brothers to be killed, Norman being the other in 1917. More surprisingly they were both cousins of my Welsh Grandfather William Davies!

In 1916 Robert Ivor's nephew was born and named after him. In 1943 after joining his Uncles Regiment with the same rank, he was killed in North Africa. I now use their stories in illustrate the coincidence of war.