11th (Reserve) Battalion, Gloucestershire Regiment
Cyril William James Martin appears to have been born in Upper Cam near Gloucester some time in the third quarter of 1899, to Elizabeth Martin (born 1863), who could well have been a single mother as no marriage record can be found for her, prior to Cyril’s birth. According to the 1891 Census she was a domestic servant to the household of the Reverend Charles Chapman Murray-Browne, at King’s Norton, Worcestershire.
By the time of the Great War the Reverend Murray-Browne was serving as the Vicar of Hucclecote, on the outskirts of Gloucester: he lost two sons in the Great War, one an officer on board the ship HMS Indefatigable which blew up under German fire at the Battle of Jutland on 31 May 1916 and the other serving with the Canadian Infantry at Mount Sorrel, near Ypres, about a fortnight later.
Not much is known about Private Cyril Martin, as his Army Service Record did not survive the bombing of the Army Records Depository in London in 1940
At the census of 1901 Elizabeth was nurse to the Ireland family in Dursley and young Cyril (aged one) was living with his grandparents (James and Hannah Martin) in Upper Cam.
In 1905 or 1906 Elizabeth married William Bye, with who she had one child and at the time of the 1911 Census the family (including Cyril) was living at Forthey, North Nibley.
All we know of Cyril’s Army service is that he enlisted at Wotton-under-Edge assuming this was after he reached the prescribed minimum age of 17, this would not have been before the latter part of 1916.
The CWGC Register shows him as being in the 11th Glosters. This was a training battalion, which never went abroad. Cyril would not normally have been sent abroad until after his 19th birthday and therefore it is reasonable to assume that he was with this Battalion (based at Seaford, Sussex) until his discharge from the Army. On 1 September 1916, the 11th Glosters became 16th Training Reserve Battalion, in 4th Reserve Brigade.
As the CWGC does not mention the renamed battalion possibly this indicates that he entered Army service sometime in the summer of 1916.
The recently released Register of Soldier’s Effects from the time of the Great War, confirms that Cyril died on 21 July 1918 (he was aged 19) and that his death was at Stancombe, Dursley.
A recently released Pension Record Card gives the cause of death to be pulmonary tuberculosis: it also reveals that Cyril left a widow, Alice Mary (née Brown).
Investigation of BMD records indicates that the wedding took place in Lincoln in early 1918.
Cyril was buried in North Nibley Cemetery on 25 July and his grave is now marked by a standard CWGC headstone.
Research by Graham Adams 26 January 2015 (revised 3 August 2021