Somerset Light Infantry
A number of Winsham men joined the Somerset Light Infantry, or were already serving as territorials in that regiment. Towards the end of September 1914,  The Divisional General of the Wessex Division received a telegram saying that Lord Kitchener wanted to see him at the War Office next day.  
  ‘I went to the War Office and was taken into Lord Kitchener’s room and you can imagine I got a little bit of a shock when he said: ‘I want you to take your Division to India.  Will they go?’   You must remember that at that time the Imperial obligation did not apply to the Territorial's. I said, ‘Well sir, I do not think that anybody has had much thought about it, but I am perfectly certain that if you want them to go to India they will go there right enough’.  He replied, ‘Very well, go back to your Division now, get hold of them tomorrow morning on Salisbury Plain, use your personal influence and tell them from me that I want them to go to India and that by going to India they will be performing a great Imperial duty.   I have to bring white troops back from India and I must replace them there by white troops from home’.
The First Battalion went to France, but the 1st/4th. Territorial battalions went to India and ultimately Mesopotamia.  

FATALITIES IN THE GREAT WAR

What do we know about the “we” from the quotation above?  This verse on the Winsham and Cricket St Thomas war memorial is followed by the names of 24 men who died in the Great War.  If our promise to remember them is to mean anything, it would help if they represented more than just inscriptions in stone.

The Winsham Web Museum has a section (below) outlining the military background to the deaths of most of the men.  I have tried to add information about their lives before they joined the services.  I am not a trained historian and I have relied on online data sources.  There must be far more in various archives, old newspapers, etc and it would be great if someone could add to my basic findings and correct any errors.

The names are listed alphabetically, without reference to rank. 

Frank BRIDLE.  Born in 1900 to Walter and Kate (see below).  At the time, Walter was a farm carter at Lords Leaze near Chard, but in 1911 the family was living at Chalkway.  Frank died in Sept 1919 and is buried in Cologne, so it is likely he was in the occupying forces after the war.  The Spanish flu pandemic, which killed more people than the war had done, was still raging and soldiers were a susceptible group.

Percy BRIDLE.  Born in 1891 to William and Charlotte.  Percy was a gardener at Cricket House before the war.  He enlisted in the county regiment in Monmouthshire in August 1914.  He died in May 1918 and is buried in Berlin, so he was probably a prisoner of war at the time.

Walter BRIDLE. Born in 1878, possibly to unmarried mother, Jane, a domestic servant living in Bridge.  Married Kate Singleton in 1899.  She died in 1908 and he married Emma Jane Moulton in 1910.  Farm worker, and father of Frank (above).

Augustus BROOM.  Born in 1892 to Albert and Ellen.  Albert was a dairy manager on the Cricket estate and formerly at Broadenham Farm.  In 1911 Augustus was an apprentice butcher, living with his parents.

Samuel Walter BROWN.  Son of James and Elizabeth Brown, was the middle of 13 children all born in Winsham. In 1901 his father was a horse carter on a farm and Walter (age 13) was described as a coachman. In 1911 his parents were living in Court St and Walter had moved to Llanbradach in S. Wales, working in the colliery. He was lodging with a family that included Hannah Leah Pook, whom he married shortly after. Their son was born in December, and was three when his father was killed. Walter's nephew, Douglas Brown, was among the Winsham war dead in WW2.

 R. Edwin BUDGE.  Born in 1885 to Alfred and Mary of Broadenham Farm.  Alfred was also a school manager and frequently chaired the parish council.  Edwin worked on the farm.

Sidney BUTLER.  Born in 1886 to Alfred and Mary of Fore Street.  Sidney, like his father, became a farm labourer.  He married Kate Russell (sister of Albert, below) in 1914.  When Sidney was killed, Kate had lost a husband and brother in the space of four months.

Ernest COTTRELL.  Born in 1885, son of John and Sarah, who lived in Ammerham.  In 1901 he was working in a corn mill on the River Axe in Thorncombe parish.  Married Florence, details unknown.

Archibald FORSEY.  Son of Sarah Jane and Thomas, a shoemaker, living in Fore Street.  Born 1888.  He was an estate gardener in 1911 and his sister Mabel taught at the school.

Alfred Harold FRY.  Born in Bristol, 1886, to Francis James and Elizabeth Fry.  Francis was a member of the Fry’s Chocolate dynasty and in 1897 he bought the Cricket Estate.  He was chairman of Winsham Parish Council (in a largely honorary capacity) from 1900 to 1919.  The Fry's were a traditionally Quaker family.  Harold trained as a barrister and married Margaret Evans in 1912 at All Souls, Langham Place in London.  At the time of his death, Margaret was living in Eaton Square.  Harold is the only officer among the 24 and is clearly not typical of the Winsham dead, but the Fry's were well respected in the locality.

Charles GARRETT.  Born in 1895 to George and Bessie, who lived in Purtington.  George was a farm carter and in 1911 Charles was described as a motor cleaner on the estate.

Herbert GILL.  His war record has not been located.  There was a Herbert Gill who served in the S.L.I. and at different times in three other units, but there is no positive link.  In the 1911 census, a Herbert Gill, aged 31, was an agricultural labourer living as a lodger in Fore Street.  In a book of local history it is said that ‘Bert’ Gill had a barber’s shop in Back Street around the same time.

William GOOD.  The Good family in Winsham go back a long way.  The first Good recorded in the church register was baptised in 1584.  William was the son of Jane and George, an estate gardener, of West Street.  They later moved to Church Street and William became an apprentice baker.

Fred HAWKER was born in 1888 to Jacob and Eliza of Heywood in Thorncombe parish.  By 1911 he had enlisted in the regular army as a private in the S.L.I.  He was killed in action three weeks after the outbreak of war.

H. Louis LOARING.  The Loarings are another old-established Winsham family, recorded in the church register as far back as 1598.  H. L. was born in 1888 to Henry, a bootmaker, and Sarah.  They lived in Back Street, then Fore Street.  Louis emigrated to Canada and enlisted in the army in May 1916 in Winnipeg, where he had been working as a conductor (train or tram?).  He had married, but gave his father as next of kin.  The attestation form gives his height as 5’3”.  He died of shell wounds in the attack on Vimy Ridge.

Wilfred NORTHCOMBE was born in 1888, the son of Walter and Mary (nee Hodder).  Walter was village schoolmaster for many years and Mary was teaching there before they married (continuing as infant school mistress).  They lived in the School House.  Walter was Parish Clerk from 1894 to 1931.  The church lych-gate was erected in their memory.  Wilfred joined the Royal Navy as an engine room artificer before 1911 and was killed in the Battle of Jutland.

John PERROTT.   Born 1893 to John, a farm labourer, and Jane.  They lived at Axewater near the bridge and John Jr. followed his father’s profession. 

William ROWE was the son of James (a shepherd) and Flora.  They lived in Cricket St. Thomas, where William became a dairyman.  His war record has not been identified.

Albert RUSSELL also came from Cricket, where his father, John, was a horse carter.  John and his wife Mary had 11 children.  Albert was born in 1891 and 20 years later was an assistant gamekeeper.  He married Annie Elizabeth Paull in 1915. After being widowed in 1917, she married Charles Loaring.

John SPURDLE.  There were several Spurdle families in and around Winsham in Edwardian times.  At least two Johns and three Sidney's were of military age, so there is scope for confusion.  John was born in 1887 to George and Fanny, of Greenham in the parish of Broadwindsor.  At the age of 13 he was a farm hand in Ammerham.  His father moved to High Street. John and Sidney (below) were cousins.

Sidney SPURDLE.  Born in 1890.  Son of William and Bessie of Malthouse, Court Street.  They had 10 children.  Sidney, like his father, was an agricultural labourer, described as a cowman when he enlisted.  His parents moved to Hollowells. Sidney and John (see above) were cousins.

Frederick John SYLVESTER.  Born 1885 to Robert and Jane.  Robert was the postmaster/shopkeeper in Church Street, next to The Bell.

John TROTT.  Son of Eliza, born 1898 in Cricket St. Thomas.  He volunteered for the Royal Navy and was the youngest when he was killed, aged 17.

James WHITE.  His service record has not been confirmed.  A James White, who was born in Hawkchurch around 1882, served initially in the S.L.I. and died of wounds at Arras on 28/4/1917.  There were Whites living in Winsham in the 1880s and James White married Elizabeth Ann Long in this area in 1913.

The above details, sketchy though they are, highlight the agricultural nature of the parishes a century ago, as well as the importance of the big estates.  The people mostly worked where they lived.  It must have been a close knit community and one can imagine the devastating impact of the war.  Many of the deaths came in clusters.  Two died in  Oct 1915 , four in the summer (June-Aug) of 1916 and three in April 1917.  We do not know when three of the men were killed and we have no record of the numbers returning without limbs, or sight, or with lungs damaged by gas. 

The above was researched and presented by John Gapper