Shropshire Light Infantry.

He died just 16 days from the end of the war – on 27th

two crosses October 1918, again most probably from wounds.

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
(John McCrae)
Another resident of Haliburton Road was James Hoare who was killed in the first
few months of the war in December 1914. He was 19 years old and a private with
the East Surreys. Because his body was never recovered James’ name is now
recorded on the Menin Gate in Ypres, where every evening the local volunteer fire
brigade continue the tradition established in July 1928 of playing the Last Post.

Alfred Richardson lived in Newry Road. He was the son of Alfred, a house painter
H anging on the wall inside All Souls Church, Haliburton Road in north St.
Margarets, are two plain wooden crosses. They once stood in the mud of
Flanders, over the makeshift graves of 2nd Lt Geoffrey Wilkins and Corporal
and his wife Elizabeth. Alfred was a private with the Prince of Wales own Civil
Service Rifles and was killed in September 1916. He is now buried in Rouen.
Lawrence Richards, local men killed in the First World War. Following the Armistice,
Then there were two men who lived almost door to each other in Northcote Road.
when the dead were gathered into formal cemeteries under uniform headstones,
Augustus Aubrey was a private with the Buffs (East Kent Regiment). He died in
the two wooden crosses were sent back to the church that both men had attended.
October 1917 and is now buried in the Tyne Cot Cemetery on the Ypres Salient. He
Now they stand like sentries on either side of a hand lettered Roll of Honour listing
was 19 years old. His neighbour and friend was Hugh Eva, the son of Charles Eva,
all the men from the parish who were killed in the Great War. Underneath the
a commercial clerk and his wife Emily. Hugh was a lance corporal in the Manchester
names is this carved caption:-
Regiment. He was 26 when he was killed in May 1917. He is buried in Achiet-Le-
Grand Communal Cemetery.
"In the year 1914 England waged war against Germany that faith should be kept
between nations and life might be ordered by right and not by violence. For this
end Englishmen left their homes and fought and suffered for 4 years. Amongst
them men of this parish of whom 86 lost their lives in helping to gain the victory.
T hey were all ordinary working men, tradesmen and shopkeepers, clerks and and
labourers, common soldiers, like Siegfried Sassoon’s Harry and Jack who
“slogged up to Arras with rifle and pack”. They were husbands and lovers and
Wherefore their names are enshrined above in grateful and loving memory and in
brothers and mates. They had grown up together and together they had died. In
hope that their deeds and sacrifice may inspire Englishmen for all time."
spite of the economic recession that the country was experiencing in the years
before the War, these men were fortunate. Living in smart new houses in the new
W ho were these 86 men from St. Margarets? What do we know about them?
There were the two Cope brothers, Robert and Henry, who lived in
Northcote Road. They died within 2 months of each other. Robert, a private with
and reasonably affluent suburb of St. Margaret’s they weren’t driven into the Army
because of financial necessity. They signed up because they felt it was their duty to
do so.
the London Regiment, was 23 when he was killed in action in October 1916 at
Thiepval. His older brother Henry died from wounds in December 1916 at Etaples
the main British depot in France and location of the notorious “Bullring” training
camps. He was 29 and a rifleman with the 29th Rifle Brigade.
D ying for your country doesn’t make you a hero and as war poet Wilfred Owen
observed, it doesn’t offer glory or honour either – but who can imagine what
courage it must have taken to face death every day in the horror of the trenches?
Whatever else we may say about them it is undeniable that they were all
Reginald Frederick lived in Haliburton Road. He was a private in the Middlesex
remarkably brave men. So, when we walk the same streets that they once
Regiment and only 18 years old when he was killed at Thiepval in June 1916. Living
walked, past the houses that they once lived in, let us remember them.
almost directly opposite him was A.E Long, a lance corporal in the 2nd Dragoon
Guards. He was 32 years old with a wife called Rose. If there was any comfort to be
Here dead lie we because we did not choose
found in his death in May 1915 it is that he most probably died from wounds not
To live and shame the land from which we sprung.
on the Western Front but at the West Middlesex Hospital where his family could
Life, to be sure, is nothing much to lose;
visit him. He is now buried in Isleworth Cemetery, just one of the 28 soldiers of the
But young men think it is, and we were
Great War buried there. Keeping him eternal company is Cyril Cuthbert Keene
young. (AE Housman)
who lived in St. Margarets Road. Cyril was 28 years old and a private in the Kings
Research by Martyn Day - local resident