Families at War

Picture the face of a fourteen year old boy, his face crystallised as if frozen, his mouth open. It was unfathomable to him. I watched him as he asked a question of his teacher: 'But how? How could that happen?'

'In war people fight for all sorts of reasons - patriotism, duty - for the one's they love, for family.' She responded.

His face tightened. 'For family.' He looked back down at the graves in front of him and shook his head. Two men on two gravestones. The same name.

But how do you explain how members of the same family could die in the same war, the same day, the same battle?

In the small Cotswold village of Great Rissington, Annie Souls had five sons - Albert, Frederick, Walter, Alfred and Arthur – who all enlisted to fight for King and country. Not one would return home from the trenches of the Western Front. Their names are immortalised as the greatest British familial sacrifice of World War One. A hospital chaplain wrote to Annie Souls to say that she and her son, Walter had given a great sacrifice – she had given her son, he his life. But in the end, she had given five sons.

Corporal Harry Gilbert wrote to his local paper, saying that his two brothers had joined him on the front, 'there are now three of us doing our bit.' Mr and Mrs Gratton of Landkey, Devon were 'congratulated on their family’s patriotic record' by the King – across three continents, from England, Canada and Australia, her eight sons enlisted to fight. Half of her boys would be dead by war’s end.

They say that no family escaped World War One; that no individual didn’t know somebody who died in the Great War. And yet even so, there is something more to say. A huge part of the armies fighting were fighting as a part of a family. How many fathers, sons and brothers stood next to each other in queues for the army recruiting office to add their name, to do their bit for King and country?

Two men are buried side by side in Dartmoor Cemetery in the village of Becordel-Becourt on the Somme in France. Both served together in the Royal Field Artillery. Both died in the same action on the same day, the 5^th September 1916. Serjeant George Lee lies forevermore alongside his 19 year old son, Corporal Robert Fredrick Lee. What more tragic reminder of the personal cost to war than a father and son dying on the same day, the same battle?

A number of twin brothers fought in World War One. Some fell, some survived. In some instances, both twin brothers were lost to the war. Privates Adolphus and Archibald Gallienne, twin brothers serving with the Royal Guernsey Light Infantry were both to die within two days of each other in March 1918. Their bodies were never found. Their names are listed on the Tyne Cot memorial to the missing. Their brother Thomas also fell – his name is listed on the Cambrai Monument.

On a simple brass plaque at Hartington Church within the Derbyshire peak district, the same name repeated three times calls out to you. Originally from Derbyshire but who emigrated and enlisted as part of the Canadian Infantry, L/Cpl Sidney Oliver 7th Battalion, and his two sons, Private William Evelyn Oliver, 7^th Battalion and Private James Oliver, 54^th Battalion all died during the war. Both Sidney and his son, William were to die on 24^th April 1915 in the same battle and are commemorated on the Menin Gate at Ypres. James fell nearly 2 years later in April 1917 aged just 19.

You do not have to venture far into the records to find examples of great sacrifice of both those who served and those who sat waiting for the door to open. Those tragic episodes are not limited to the fathers, brothers and sons, but to sisters and wives too. Women who took up the challenge of administering care and respite all too often got caught up in the shelling of casualty clearing stations and then with the flu pandemic that killed too many during 1918 and 1919.

Mrs Mildred Davis lost her husband Capt. Reginald Noel Davis of 2^nd Battalion West Riding when he was killed in action 12^th October 1916. They had been married for 9 months. In October 1918, Mildred herself died of pneumonia whilst serving with the French Red Cross. She is buried in Mazargues War Cemetery in Marseilles but in Hazelbury Bryan Church in Dorset is a plaque to the memory of the couple. The same church where they were married on January 1^st 1916 and where Mildred’s father was rector.

Captain Charles A W Pope was 'one of eleven brothers and four sisters, all of whom fought or worked for their Country in the Great War.' He was to die in 1917, part of the Royal Army Medical Corps. For the Smith family from Ledbury in Herefordshire, there are two casualties, navy men William and Thomas who are listed as part of a family of 'six brothers and one sister, all of whom served in the Great War.' William was killed when HMS Defence was sunk at the Battle of Jutland in 1916 and his brother Thomas, Leading Telegraphist on board HMS E47 was killed when his submarine sank in the North Sea.

One thing is certain when looking at the role of families during the First World War that multiple family deaths appear to be all too common. The combined sacrifice of men and women from families across the country deserves an unquestionable commendation of bravery and respect. But to go back to the schoolboy on his trip to the battlefields, I heard him remark to his teacher one final statement: 'I don’t know how they did it Miss, I’m not sure I could have.'

Joanna Gleed is a researcher, writer and educational consultant with a particular interest in researching historical events from unusual perspectives.