A SAD ENDING? WW1 Memorial Stone

[Rick W]

Can they read the thread Jack being non-members?

 

Ref Trench maps- £85 is a lot of money! The IWM trench map book has got a couple of maps from that area but not specifically our mans trenches. I dont know how "local" these maps are, perhaps Tony could see for us. Failing that I wonder if Bovingdon, The Norfolks Museum may let us have copies? What we need is perhaps someone who lives near Bovvy and is maybe a paid up member of the library....... :whistle:

[Rick W]

Before I leave the daytime shift, a couple more photos.

Fremicourt

http://i117.photobucket.com/albums/o72/rik242_2006/fremicourt.jpg[/img]

 

And an interesting one! From what I can make out from the website (its in german, mine isnt that good!), one of these tanks was knocked out in Fremicourt on the 31st August. I dont know a great deal about these, I think they are called a VP7, Germanys first tank I believe. Ironic really that a stone appears on the HMVF and its namebearer may have been an eyewitness to Germanys first tank!

http://i117.photobucket.com/albums/o72/rik242_2006/frem2.jpg[/img]

I'll leave you with that thought!

[N.O.S.]

I have a lead into Thetford Grammar School, to the history teacher who picks a local person (e.g. old pupil) each year to research as a project. They had a Time Team dig a while back. I will sound him out over the next few days with no commitment.

 

The problem with the family is we do not have a good 'base camp'. If the family died out in New Buckenham, or those remaining moved away, our target could be in a big area - all we have to go on is that our soldier enrolled at Thetford. Anyone any idea how widespread enrollment points were at that time? Could have covered a lot of villages :dunno:

 

Found a view of the WW1 memorial outside a church in Beugny.

 

Only other interesting fact I've discovered is that a Zeppelin Staaken V.v13/16 crashed at Beugny on the night of 15/16th Sep 1918. What an awsome sight for those in the trenches.......

[Rick W]

The problem with researching WW1 casualties! My great grandfather had 3 brothers who died in the great war. All from the same village/locality in north Bucks. One in the Essex Regt, one in the RGR, one in the OxonBucks! Just because you were recruited in one town it doesnt mean you ended up in that regt. Especially with being moved around to make up numbers.

[N.O.S.]

This link -

 

http://www.1914-1918.net/sacredground/kschlacht/beugny'>http://www.1914-1918.net/sacredground/kschlacht/beugny'>http://www.1914-1918.net/sacredground/kschlacht/beugny

 

This link does not work - try http://www.1914-1918.net then search "beugny" and click on first search result "beugny"

 

- will take you to a very brief description and view of the Red Cross Cemetery at Beugny.

 

The cemetery was developed from 1917 while the front line was to the East near Cambrai. Beugny was overun by the Germans who then buried their dead in the same site. When the town was retaken, the German bodies were removed and buried elsewhere.

 

[N.O.S.]

Just found another victim of the Beugny Raid, a Corporal Frederick Samuel Allen, 290300, 1st Battalion Norfolk Regt. - died of wounds 02 Sep 1918, buried at Red Cross Cemetery. His name appears on the Memorial at Downham Market.

[Tony B]

The problem with researching WW1 casualties! My great grandfather had 3 brothers who died in the great war. All from the same village/locality in north Bucks. One in the Essex Regt, one in the RGR, one in the OxonBucks! Just because you were recruited in one town it doesnt mean you ended up in that regt. Especially with being moved around to make up numbers.

 

Rick, I am an honorary member of the 10th Essex re-enactors Steve,( Canadian Scottish) and Robbie are also members, so they would be more than happy than help with any Essex info. On the media side, BBC radio 4 have the 'Making history' programme. I did a bit for them a couple of years ago on Naval WW1 airships. Contact them via the web site, this is the sort of thing they thrive on.

 

for time spent the amount of info turned up is stupendous. Someone now needs to get it set in a legible order as a press release / article. I'm happy to have a go if you want. N.O.S. you deserve all praise, we have just helped. It is very generous of you to think of the good standing of the forum, in what is your project. Well done!

[Joris]

Okay lads, on saturday I'm driving down to Beugny and take some pictures of the area and his gravestone. I'll try and get as much info on locations before I leave so I'll get the best possible shots.

[N.O.S.]

Okay lads, on saturday I'm driving down to Beugny and take some pictures

 

 

Brilliant, Joris. The best I'll manage is the War Memorial at Thetford....

[Tony B]

Good journeys, if the weather is anything like round here this morning take raincoat.

[Rick W]

Thanks for the offer Tony I will take you up at some point in the future, the Making History programme sounds like a good bet. Im quite happy for someone else to write it all up and summarise it as a press release/article. I think we still need to try and suss out if theres any living relatives...or do we? Maybe not.

[Rick W]

Just found another victim of the Beugny Raid, a Corporal Frederick Samuel Allen, 290300, 1st Battalion Norfolk Regt. - died of wounds 02 Sep 1918, buried at Red Cross Cemetery. His name appears on the Memorial at Downham Market.

 

http://i117.photobucket.com/albums/o72/rik242_2006/DownhamMarketAllenFred.jpg[/img]

 

(Picture courtesy of http://www.roll-of-honour.com)

 

[N.O.S.]

I think we still need to try and suss out if theres any living relatives...or do we? Maybe not.

 

 

If there's time today, I'll search New Buckenham churchyard for parents' graves in case they died there - might give us a lead. But if they moved away, :dunno:

[Tony B]

Thanks for the offer Tony I will take you up at some point in the future, the Making History programme sounds like a good bet. Im quite happy for someone else to write it all up and summarise it as a press release/article. I think we still need to try and suss out if theres any living relatives...or do we? Maybe not.

 

Would be corteous. Trouble is the only way is to broadcast what we have. Chicken and egg. :dunno: Local radio is probably the best bet. Only a small action , JUST 18 or killed, and yet so many lives. If you thought about it it would drive you nuts.

[LeeEnfield]

I think we still need to try and suss out if theres any living relatives...or do we? Maybe not.

 

 

 

How about aproaching local paper/radio with a request for anyone with any contact details, to contact them;....Its worked in other circumstances, when other avenues have failed.

[Rick W]

Already been thinking along those lines, especially local newspaper.

I dont suppose anyone has got a copy of History of the Norfolks? By F.Lorraine Petre, 2006 N+M Press? Its got some eyewitness accounts and personal memoirs, and photos in it. There is one on ebay, but they want a whopping £48! Keep an eye open for it in the library, especially you East Anglians!

[Tony B]

Already been thinking along those lines, especially local newspaper.

I dont suppose anyone has got a copy of History of the Norfolks? By F.Lorraine Petre, 2006 N+M Press? Its got some eyewitness accounts and personal memoirs, and photos in it. There is one on ebay, but they want a whopping £48! Keep an eye open for it in the library, especially you East Anglians!

 

try your own Libary Rick, often makes a librarians day to be a seriuos question.

[N.O.S.]

First stop Thetford Memorial. Only one Jackson - our man.

 

Then New Buckenham - helpful butcher put me onto the vicar (elderly local farmer) who's son in law just up the road is a Jackson (no, sadly not as it turned out!!).

Couldn't find him till late afternoon, he is unaware of any Jacksons from 1900s onwards. The Parish records are now in Norwich library so, if not destroyed by the fire some years back, may reveal some details from birth register. I checked the cemetery anyway, not a sign of a Jackson from 1880 onwards.

 

A friend's son will brief the Thetford school history teacher on Monday and get him to contact me - Ed reckons teacher might do some work for us just for the challenge, routine stuff for him.

 

One of the journalists for the regional paper does a lot of research at the Regiment Museum and is into wartime tales, so I could try him next week :dunno:

 

There is a tenuous connection between the farming minister and the Forum, in that he will have had his lime spread at one time by a GMC spreader operated by a contractor Franklin, just up the road.

 

Franklin offered it to me in 1980 (to use!!!) - chassis cracked in more than one place, I declined and it was bought by a collector near Bristol, who cut the body off and took just chassis cab. I wonder if was restored :shake:.

 

Here is the Thetford Memorial.

[N.O.S.]

on 11th nov i will be over the water at a remberance service so will place a small cross for our soldier and also for all soldiers who have died

 

 

That would be good, David - we'll put one by the Thetford Memorial.

[Rick W]

Youve got a good contact there. It occurred to me today that local papers used to print pages of photos to those local lads who were KIA. Im wondering if the local paper at the time, whatever that was , did the same? Does anyone know what the local paper was? We've got a local collectors ephemera shop near here I could visit, theyve got all sorts of odd stuff. Been looking on ebay as well for trench maps. They are a fairly regular occurence, though nothing that relates to our man on there today.

[Mark]

THis paper is the local one by the looks of it;

 

http://www.thetfordandbrandontimes.co.uk/content/tbtimes/content/aspx/aboutus.aspx

 

 

Also from the same paper

 

Pilgrimage to honour soldiers

 

19 September 2007

 

SOLDIERS who died for King and country in the first world war are honoured on north Norfolk's town and village memorials, and remembered every November.

 

But what about the thanks owed to those men who fought and came home after the 1914-1918 war?

 

Almost 90 years after the end of that conflict, the son of one veteran thinks it's time to remember his village's unsung heroes.

 

And 78-year-old Mervyn York has chosen an unusual way to pay them homage, as well as raise money for two causes in his home village of Tunstead.

 

Mr York has begun a sponsored Remembrance Walk, covering land farmed by each of the village's Great War soldiers, including his father Reuben.

 

Each of the 10 returning veterans was given a smallholding of about 52 acres in Tunstead so that they could make a living and raise families.

 

Today, none of that land is farmed by any of their descendants, but Mr York has been given permission by its current owners to walk 21 fields this month, raising awareness of local history and keeping the men's memory alive.

 

Some interested residents have asked to accompany him and dogs Sam and Ben on his pilgrimage and he is also planning to erect a plaque in Tunstead Church commemorating the 10: Jack Bacon, Charlie Durrant, George Durrant, Herbert Eaves, Benjamin Newstead, Frederick Nickerson, George Norgate, Robert Richardson, Samuel Wooltorton and Reuben York.

 

Mr York has raised about £250 in sponsorship so far and the cash will be divided between Tunstead School, where he was once a pupil, and St Mary's Church, Tunstead. As a child, he worshipped there three times every Sunday.

 

“Quite a while ago I had it come into my mind there were all these bits and pieces about remembering the chaps who didn't come home from the war and I thought the smallholders could be remembered as well,” said Mr York.

 

“Nowadays no-one in this village ever thinks about them but the other ones have all been remembered. So I came to think about walking their land. They had to work hard for their living.”

 

Reuben York married and raised 10 children on his smallholding, New Barn Farm. He kept cows, bullocks, horses to work the land and a pony to pull the milk cart. And he grew a range of crops until he retired, at the end of 1949.

 

Mr York didn't follow his father into farming, spending 42 years working for the electricity board instead. But he has had a lifelong interest in the agricultural machinery and methods of former years and was one of the founders of the Tunstead Trosh, a popular annual festival, from 1986-2001, which celebrated traditional farming ways. He is also a founder of the annual Skeyton Goat classic car and motorcycle rally.

 

· Anyone who would like to sponsor Mr York can send a cheque, payable to Remembrance Walk, to: 6 Granary Way, Tunstead, Norfolk NR12 8AH, or pay into a Remembrance Walk account which has been opened at the NatWest bank in Hoveton.

 

 

 

[N.O.S.]

We eventually have a handle on the family and some history (all pre war) - this from on-line search of 1901, 1891, 1871 census:

 

Bernard's mother Emma was born in Croxton, on northern edge of Thetford, in 1849.

 

In 1871 -

 

Emma (age 22) is living with husband Henry (25) in cottages at (Manure?) works in Thetford, where Henry works.

They have a daughter Mary Ann, 6 months old.

 

Cannot get a link to the family in 1891 Census (???)

 

By 1901 -

 

Emma is a widow (52) living in Bury St.Edmunds with her daughter Sarah (28), elder son Harry J (21), Bernard (6) and a granddaughter Lilian D Collins, 9 months old, who was born in Horton-in-Ribblesdale.

Harry is a grocer's assistant, Sarah is a draper's assistant.

 

So in between these dates -

 

It would appear that Emma and Henry lost their daughter Mary, moved to Croxton where Harry, Sarah and Bernard were all born, and (possibly following the death of husband Henry?) Emma moved to Bury St.Edmunds.

Oh, and Harry (or Sarah) has a daughter, but no sign of the mother (or father) - maybe died?. Note that Emma would have been 46 when Bernard was born.

 

And then Bernard goes off to war.

 

But who had the memorial stone made?

 

We should not make any value judgements based on the above, life must have been pretty tough back then.

 

I suppose it helps to put our soldier's life into perspective, it would be interesting to know if Harry went off to fight (he would have been 34 at the outbreak of war).

 

Quite frankly, this is begining to do my head in, I don't even know if I'm on the right forum anymore :dunno:

 

I'm just going outside to re-cut a set of bald 7.50x20 bargrip tyres with a nail file -

"I may be some time"

:shake: :shake: :shake:

[Tony B]

1pint of Brandy and a Vallium sandwich on the way. :-D

[Rick W]

Blimey! Youve been busy. It does take over your thoughts a bit though doesnt it! I keep telling my better half about it and Im sure she just switches off. Makes a change though, its normally the other way around!

Im going to go and rub down some bits of rusty metal this morning.......followed by a mug of tea with accompanying film of WD40 floating on top..... ;-)

[N.O.S.]

It does take over your thoughts a bit though doesnt it! I keep telling my better half about it and Im sure she just switches off.

 

 

I've been getting some strange looks. Makes messing about with the old trucks seem much more acceptable though :whistle:

 

Think we need a specialist on the family trail - gets complicated after a certain level :shake: You need a certain mindset to get to grips with it. Anyone got a friend or whatever who's into this?

 

I've established Henry was in Thetford in 1881 as an agricultural labourer, granddaughter's full name was lilian Dot Collins, born between Sep and Oct 1900. On reflection, this must be Bernard's sister Sarah's child.