13th Battalion, Cheshire Regiment
James Campbell is the only soldier who I’ve researched who has no historic connection with the
county of Gloucestershire. He is buried at Stroud Old Cemetery.
James appears on the roll of Ireland’s Memorial Records stating that he was born in Fintona, County Tyrone, Ireland. The only record on Ancestry is inclusion in the UK Soldiers Died in the Great War, 1914-1919 record and latterly the Register of Soldiers Effects. It states that James enlisted at Port Sunlight.
My early internet research did not uncover any information although I found a Campbell family in the 1901 census in Fintona but could not be sure this was the right family.
The most incredible part of my research happened in October 2010. I was walking around Whaddon churchyard, where Private Witts is buried, when I found a headstone relating to the Commandant of the Voluntary Aid (VA) Hospitals in Gloucestershire.
Not knowing much about these at that time, I decided to look into this on the internet. Unbelievably when I tapped in Stroud VA Hospital, a page came up on the website of a local folk singer, Rebsie Fairholm and I emailed her. Rebsie maintains that she saved the Stroud Red Cross Admissions and Discharges book from being dumped in a skip – a friend was going to do this apparently. She had decided to display just one page on her website which happened to be the one that gives the details of 753 James Campbell. Rebsie said she intended transferring the contents on to her website but that she could only work on it part time.
The page states that 34 year old Private Campbell was admitted to the hospital on 6 January 1915 and that he had five months ‘service in the command’. He was attached to the 3rd Company of the 13th Cheshire Regiment and died on 14 April from ‘bronchitis pleurite effusion’.
So in February 2011, I contacted the Ulster Herald asking if James had family still in the area. Just a week later I had a call from Veronica Farrell, James great niece, who lives less than 30 miles from Fintona in Dungannon.
Her grandmother was Ellen (Fee), James’ sister and another sister went to California according to Veronica.
The family story was that James left home to go to England to find work. He enlisted and never returned home. They hold his Dead Man’s Penny. During a subsequent call to Veronica she said she thought James might have been 16/17 when he left Ireland but did not know from which port he left saying that Belfast was the nearest. I felt that Veronica was no too sure of her information. I sent her a photo of James’s headstone and copies of his entry in the Red Cross book and Ireland’s Memorial Records.
I decided to research the 13th Cheshire Regiment by contacting the Cheshire Military Museum in the summer of 2011 and paid for research to be done.
The 13th Cheshires were formed on 1 September 1914 at Port Sunlight on the Wirral and they became known as the Wirral battalion. It was thought to be the nearest that the regiment had to a Pals Battalion. The majority who enlisted were employees from Lord Lever Port Sunlight factory.
The researcher, Geoffrey Crump, had established that there were a number of Southern Irishmen who had enlisted and assumed that they had been employed at Port Sunlight or at the Cammell Laird shipyard which was a few miles away. Alternatively, there were a group of Irishmen who ‘jumped on the boat to Liverpool with intentions of enlisting’.
The 13th Cheshires moved to Salisbury Plain in the October of 1914 and spent the winter in billets in Bournemouth. The winter was apparently severe so we can only assume that James was taken ill whilst there. The battalion moved to Aldershot in May and landed in France on 25 September 1915. James was one of only four pre-embarkation casualties.
The researcher reported that there were at least 32 Irishmen with the 13th and all had the ‘W’ prefix which stood for Wirral, who were all original members of the battalion. He planned to conduct further research as to how they all came to be with the same battalion.
W701 Sgt Richard Elliott, who died from wounds in 1916 was an employee of Lever Brothers and the researcher suggested that I contact the Port Sunlight Factory which has an archive.
I contacted Stuart Irwin at Port Sunlight in July 2011. James Campbell does not appear on the Port Sunlight Memorial.
In 1921, Lever Brothers produced a book entitled The Golden Book which contains the name of every man from Port Sunlight and Lever Brothers who went away to fight. There are three J Campbells in the book – Driver J, Private J and Lance Corporal J R Campbell. However all three are thought to have survived the war.
Could Private J Cambell be Private 753? We will probably never know.
In November 2011, I contacted the archive at Cammell Laird although a check of relevant staff ledgers did not find a James Campbell. However, only staff members such as architects and draughtsmen were listed, so James, as I assume a labourer, would not have been listed anyway.
Armed with the results of further research, I wrote back to Veronica Farrell in April 2012 outlining what I had discovered. She had a sister living in Bristol who was planning to visit the cemetery at Stroud so asked if she had been. I had no response.
In May 2012 I emailed the Stroud Roman Catholic Church — according to cemetery records James’s funeral was conducted by Father Fitzgerald. I wanted to know if their records showed next of kin for James but I did not receive a response.
It was not until January 2015 that I was able to glean more about James’ family in Ireland. Ancestry added a new series of records in that month: UK Army Register of Soldiers Effects.
James Campbell is listed although his stated date of death and place vary to that stated by the CWGC and Stroud Hospital. The record number is 157806. It states that James Campbell died on 15 April 1915 at the 2nd Southern Hospital in Bristol from tuberculosis.
It shows that his next of kin were due a payment of £10 9d and a War Gratuity of £3. The £10 9d was authorised in January 1916, the £3 not until 18 August 1919. The £3 was payable to his Bridget, his Mother; the £10 9d being split between his family as follows: Mother Bridget : £2 10s 3d; Brother Mick : £2 10s 2d; Sister Ellen : £2 10s 2d; Sister Rose : £2 10s 2d. I then researched the Irish 1901 and 1911 census to see if I could pin the family down. I found a 99.9% match with a family living in Lower Tattymoyle in the parish of Donacavey, Clogher in 1901. The family consisted of James, 53, a farmer, and his wife Bridget who was 47. They had five children, Rose Ann 23, James 19, Susan 13, Ellen 11 and nine year old Michael.
According to Ancestry, Bridget Teague married James Campbell on 12 February 1877 at Dromore which is just a few miles from Fintona.
I tried to follow the family through to the 1911 census. I found Bridget at the same address but she stated her age as 62 and that she was a widow. Living with her were James 29, Michael Joseph 26 and Ellen 21. Bridget and James described themselves as farmers. Clearly there are wide age discrepancies between Bridget (five years) and Michael (seven years) but I believe them to be the same family. I have been unable to establish when James’ father died.
So it is probable that James left Ireland sometime after the 1911 census was taken in April for England – as Veronica thought, looking for work, but not aged 16/17. His father had died and it is likely that the family were not well off. He could well have found work at Port Sunlight where there were other Irish workers and enlisted together on the outbreak of war. He developed a respiratory illness whilst on initial training during the harsh winter of 1914/15 somewhere in Wiltshire or Dorset and was firstly hospitalised at Bristol and then transferred to Stroud VA Hospital which was attached to the 2nd General Hospital at Bristol. He died some three months later on 14 April 1915.*
On 6 February 2015, I wrote to the Royal British Legion branch in Fintona asking if Campbell’s name had been inscribed on their war memorial and alerting to them to the fact that the centenary of his death was approaching and that they might like to remember him but I had no reply. James Campbell’s grave is marked by a standard CWGC headstone.
* A report of Private Campbell’s funeral has been found in the Stroud News & Journal of 23 April 1915.
This took place on Saturday 17 April 1915, with full military honours and it was conducted by Rev Stephen Fitzgerald, Priest-in-Charge of the Roman Catholic Church at Beeches Green.
The report confirms that Campbell had enlisted into the Cheshire Regiment upon the outbreak of war and that he was undergoing training at Codford (Military Camp, near Warminster, Wiltshire, when he was suddenly taken ill with ‘consumption’ and admitted to 2nd Southern Military hospital, Bristol. On 6 April he was transferred to Stroud VA Hospital, where he died.
The report reads: The funeral took place at the Stroud Cemetery on Saturday afternoon with military honours of Private James Campbell, of the Cheshires, who died at the Stroud General Hospital on Wednesday.
The deceased soldier was 34 of age and enlisted with the Cheshires at the commencement of the war. He was undergoing training at Codford but at the end of last year, he was suddenly ill and was treated at the military hospital at Bristol. However on April 6th he was transferred to Stroud and it was here that he succumbed to consumption.
The unfortunate fellow, who was a stranger in Stroud, had no relatives and there were only officials from the Red Cross Hospital and soldiers present at his funeral. Despite the fact that the time of the funeral had been kept very quiet, there was a large gathering to witness the (progress?) of the cortege to the Stroud Cemetery, the hearse being preceded by the Company of men now being formed in Stroud in (association?) with the Gloucester and Worcester Brigade Company, Army Service Corps. Sgt PL Clissold.
The ceremony and internment was simple but impressive, the burial rites being recited by the Rev Stephen Fitzgerald, priest in charge of the Roman Catholic Church Beeches Green.
The coffin which was lowered into the grave by four members of the A.S.C. was [word missing] with the Union Jack. Amongst those present were Miss Holmes (matron of the General Hospital), Mrs Martin (Commandant) and Miss James (quartermaster) the Red Cross Hospital, DR HM [name missing] medical officer at the hospital, Lieut Searle and Messrs Watson Evans JH Wilkes (quartermaster), Mr North (pharmacist) and AP Anthony, representing the Stroud Men’s Detachment of the British Red Cross Society. Several of the soldiers now in the convalescent stage and receiving treatment at the Red Cross Hospital Holy Trinity Rooms were also present. Privates Hull (2nd Yorks), Mills (Middlesex), Burns (2nd Kings Own), Mutch (1st Scotch Guards),
Fisher (Grenadiers), Elder (2nd Scotch Rifles, E Willey (1st Gloucestershire Regiment) who had formerly been employed at the GWR Stroud who was wounded at (?…ssee) on December 21st and H Smith.
The coffin was of polished elm with brass fittings and the breast plate bore the inscription James Campbell died April 14th 1915 aged 34 years’. Several beautiful floral tributes were sent, but they bore no inscription.
Researched by Helen Wollington 12 January 2017