Author name: Adrian Smith

9th Battalion, Royal Lincolnshire Regiment According to Leaving all that was dear – Cheltenham in the Great War by Joe Devereux and Graham Sacker: Henry Montfort Gardner was the son of Richard Gardner, a solicitor and Mary Ellen Gardner of Leamington Spa. He was commissioned into the army in 1886 and saw all his military […]

Royal Army Service Corps David Gardner was born in Gloucester in the first half of 1897. He was the son of Leonard Gardner who was an interior decorator (and lived from 1860 to 1903) and his wife Kezia (née Royston; 1859-1941), who was a worker in a pin factory. As far as can be ascertained,

11th (South Antrim) Battalion, Royal Irish Rifles John Joseph Dougherty was born in Whitehaven, Cumberland in about 1883. He was the husband of Florence Sarah and lived at Paragon House, Bath Road, Cheltenham. He enlisted for the duration of the war on 7 September 1914 and was posted to the King’s Own Royal Lancaster Regiment

Labour Corps Ernest William Douel was born in 1880 in Bedminster, Bristol, and was the son of William John Douel (1851-1905) a porter and his wife Sarah (née Robins: 1856-1900). It would appear that he was the eldest of their six children. His siblings were Arthur Henry (born 1882), Mabel Florence Annie (1886); Charles Joseph

1st Battalion, Border Regiment James Travers Blount Dinwiddie was born on 25 April 1891 at Dumfries, Scotland and he was the son of James Blount and Agnes-Ellen Dinwiddie. Prior to the war he was educated at Elizabeth College, Guernsey, which was followed by Pembroke College, Oxford, where he gained an honours degree in law. He

Royal Irish Fusiliers (Princess Victoria’s) Private Devine’s story is unusual in that there is no obvious Gloucestershire connection, other than where he died and is now buried. Samuel Robert Devine, to give his full name, was born in the Everton district of Liverpool on 23 July 1885, into a Protestant family with a strong Irish

7e Regiment de Ligne, Belgian Army Jacques Joseph Detrez was one of the first Belgian soldiers to come to Gloucester for treatment shortly after the outbreak of war based on a report of his funeral in the Gloucestershire Echo of 23 October 1918. Other information is contained on his Belgian military headstone in Gloucester Old

2nd Battalion, Bedfordshire Regiment William Henry Denne was born on 15 July 1876 at Elkstone, near Cirencester. He was the third son of the late Rev Richard Henry and his wife Katherine (née Evans) of Brimpsfield. After being educated at Cheltenham College (from May 1891 to July 1895), he joined the Army in 1897 and

Royal Air Force George Frederick Delmar-Williamson was born on 10 January 1899 in Notting Hill, London and was the only son of Frederick and Emily Rowley Delmar-Williamson. He was educated at Glyngarth School and attended Cheltenham College between 1913 and 1915 after which he was accepted at the Royal Military College, Sandhurst. He was gazetted

1st and 2nd Battalion, Royal Fusiliers James Ferrand Dearden was born on 29 September 1896, the son of Peregrine Robert and Annie Abbott Dearden. He attended Cheltenham College between 1907 and 1913, from where he entered the Royal Military College, Sandhurst. On 1 October 1914 he was granted a commission in the 1st Battalion Royal

1st Battalion, Gloucestershire Regiment Charles Dean was born in 1881, in Elkstone, Gloucestershire, the fourth child of George and Martha Maria Dean (née Bedwell). His siblings were Lilian (1875), Frederick (1877), and Marian (1878). In 1911, aged 30, he was single and living with his married sister in Elkstone and recorded as working as an