8th (Service) Battalion, Gloucestershire Regiment
John Valentine Stone, who was probably known by his middle name, was born at Frome, Somerset in 1895 and baptised there on 14 April of that year.
He was the son of George Enos Stone (1869-1933) who drove a car or a cart for a railway company and his wife Alice (née Butt 1871-1959). He had a sister, Muriel Victoria May, born in 1897.
At the time of the 1901 Census the family lived at 167 Gloucester Street in Cirencester. By 1911 they had moved to 60 Castle Street and Valentine, age 16, was a cycle trade apprentice.
Unfortunately, few papers have survived relating to Valentine’s army service. His Medal Rolls Index Card states that he first went abroad, to the Western Front, on 18 July 1915. Apart from this, we are reliant upon newspaper reports of his funeral for further details.
The Wilts & Gloucestershire Standard of 2 December 1916 reported:-
On Wednesday afternoon the funeral of Private John V. Stone, 8th Gloucesters, only son of Mr and Mrs G. Stone, 161 Gloucester Street took place at Cirencester Cemetery. The deceased soldier was admitted into the Great Hermitage V.A.D. Hospital, Higham, near Rochester, on Wednesday, November 22, suffering from shrapnel wounds, and died on Saturday 25th. His body reached Cirencester on Tuesday morning and was met at the railway station by members of the Cirencester Red Cross detachment. Deceased was a former member of the Church Lads’ Brigade … description of military honours, service, mourners. Private Stone, who was 21 years of age, enlisted in September 1914, having previously been employed at Cirencester Post Office as a telegraph messenger, at the Bingham Library, and later at Messrs Preston and Co’s Stores.
The Gloucestershire Echo of 30 November 1916 reported that Private Stone had died at Great Hermitage Hospital, Higham, Kent from wounds received in France. He was a messenger for some time at Cirencester Post Office, a prominent member of the Cirencester Church Lads’ Brigade and Cirencester Draughts Club and a very popular fellow. The Church Lads’ Brigade was well represented at the funeral and eight buglers sounded The Last Post. Two members of his Company in the 8th Glosters, Privates W Wright and J Bates, home on furlough, attended the funeral.
The 8th Glosters took part in an attack on the south-west outskirts of Grandcourt at 6.10am on 18 November 1916, in what was one of the final assaults of the Somme Offensive, which had begun on 1 July 1916. The battalion reached and secured its first objective but there were heavy losses in the supporting waves, 295 casualties in all. Private Stone was almost certainly one of that number.
Private John Valentine Stone died on 25 November 1916; he was 21 years old. He was laid to rest in Cirencester (Chesterton) Cemetery on 29 November 1916, where a standard CWGC headstone marks his grave. He is commemorated on the Cirencester War Memorial and that at the Cirencester Memorial Hospital
A recently released Pension Record Card shows his mother living at 161 Gloucester Street and in receipt of a dependent’s pension of five shillings, commencing 6 November 1918.
Researched by Graham Adams 4 May 2021
(Acknowledgement to the www.cirenhistory.org.uk for the extracts from the Wilts & Gloucestershire Standard).