The last few stories of the town’s fallen soldiers
‘Died on, or since, December 25th 1918’
THROUGHOUT the centenary of the First World War, we have been remembering the soldiers from the Loughborough area who lost their lives while serving their country.
Here, with the help of Marigold Cleeve and a small number of researchers from the Loughborough Carillon Tower and War Memorial Museum, we look back at more of those who made the ultimate sacrifice in November and December 1918.
Reginald Roberts Irlam.
Reginald Roberts Irlam (known to his family and friends as ‘Bobs’) was born on 18th February 1900 in Thayetmyo, Magway, Burma (now Myanmar).
He was the son of Thomas Irlam and his wife Emma Louise (née Parfitt) who were married on 1st January 1899 at the Church of St. Michael the Archangel, Aldershot, Hampshire.
Bobs’ father was a Sergeant with the South Staffordshire Regiment and his wife and family travelled with him. Bobs had two younger brothers; Thomas (known as ‘ Tom’) born in 1903 in Dagshai, Solon, Himachal Pradesh, India, and Percival Roland (known as ‘Roland) born in Lichfield, Staffordshire, in 1905.
In 1911 Bobs was with his mother and two brothers at Whittington Barracks, Whittington, Lichfield, Staffordshire.
When war broke out Bobs’ mother moved to 29 Howard Street, Loughborough, with her sons while his father, who was now a Regimental Sergeant Major, was posted to the Kings Own Yorkshire Light Infantry for home duties.
Bobs enlisted in July 1916 and joined the Royal Army Service Corps.
He did not reach the age of 18 years until 18th February 1918 and it is unlikely that he was sent abroad before that date.
He was posted to the 2nd Mechanical Transport Company as Private M2/194187 and was soon promoted to Lance Corporal.
The British Army was already the most mechanised in the world in terms of use of mechanical transport when the Great War began. It maintained that leadership, and by 1918 this was a strategically important factor in being able to maintain supply as the armies made considerable advances over difficult ground.
All Mechanical Transport Companies were part of the Lines of Communication and were not under orders of a Division, although some (known as Divisional Supply Columns and Divisional Ammunition Parks) were in effect attached to a given Division and worked closely with it.
Those in the Lines of Communication operated in wide variety of roles, such as being attached to the heavy artillery as Ammunition Columns or Parks, being Omnibus Companies, Motor Ambulance Convoys, or Bridging and Pontoon units.
The Divisional Supply Column Companies were responsible for the supply of goods, equipment and ammunition from the Divisional railhead to the Divisional Refilling Point and, if conditions allowed, to the dumps and stores of the forward units.
Bobs died of pneumonia on 30th November 1918, aged 18 in a hospital in the Boulogne area.
He was probably a victim of the influenza epidemic.
He was buried in Terlincthun British Cemetery, Wimille, on the outskirts of Boulogne, Grave XII. A. 2.
David Green.
Nothing is known about David Green’s origins and life prior to the war except that he was married and that his wife Isabella M. Green was living and possibly working at the Bull’s Head Hotel, Lough- borough, when David died in France in 1918.
David’s service papers have not survived but he enlisted with the Royal Engineers (RE).
He became Sapper 255885 (later renumbered WR/282461) in the 23rd Light Railway Operating Company of the RE. The 23rd Light Railway Company was raised at Longmoor in Hampshire and the prefix ‘WR’ to David’s service number indicates that his area of speciality was waterways and railways.
The precise date of his enlistment is unknown.
The Longmoor Military Railway (LMR) was built by the Royal Engineers in 1903 in order to train soldiers on railway construction and operations.
The railway was relaid to standard gauge in 1905–1907 and was initially known as the Woolmer Instructional Military Railway.
As a training railway, it was often constructed and deconstructed.
The layout often changed, and at one time it housed a machine which could lay 1,500 yards (1,400 m) of track a day.
A Light Railway Company consisted of approximately 200 men, in a number of trades: drivers, brakesmen, guards, wagon repairers, repair shop engineers, traffic controllers and storemen, with a few supervising officers.
The job of the Company was to run the trains, with the tracks being laid by RE Railway Construction Companies – often with the assistance of whatever Labour Corps Company or ‘resting’ infantry were at hand.
Although the British Army on the Western Front had used the French standard gauge railways to move men, equipment and supplies along the lines of communication from the Channel Ports to the Divisional railheads from the earliest days of the Great War, it relied largely on horsed transport and manual effort to move it from the railhead to the front lines.
In 1915 the French Army built a narrow gauge railway along the Somme Canal.
It greatly aided the transport of supplies to the Somme battlefield in 1916.
The formation of the RE Light Railway Companies in early 1917 was a factor that transformed the operational abilities of the Allies.
Goods and men could now make the last leg of the journey to the front by light rail.
For the final leg petrol engines were used so that no smoke or steam could be spotted by the enemy.
Until 1917 ammunition supply in particular had been subject to delays and required vast numbers of men and horses, and the light railways helped overcome both problems. Traffic and wear on the
This is the final selection of the stories of the Loughborough soldiers who gave their lives in the Great War
However, in next week’s Echo we will be marking the magnificent work of the volunteers, who have been bringing those stories to you for the past four years, with a special report
roads and tracks leading up to the front was eased, and fewer men were required to repair them.
The 23rd Light Railway Company went to France on 23rd March 1917.
It was a Miscellaneous Trades Company and was probably co-located with the Light Railway Workshops, possibly at Berguette and then after the German Spring Offensive in March 1918 at Beaurainville, thirty miles away from the front.
The move from Berguette to Beaurainville took three months. The workshops at Beaurainville remained operational until July 1919, helping to keep vital supplies moving in the months after the Armistice.
David died on 5th December 1918 in No. 12 Stationary Hospital, St. Pol-sur-Ternoise, France. He was buried in St. Pol British Cemetery, Grave D13.
Thomas Thorold Screaton.
Thomas Thorold Screaton was born in Willoughby on the Wolds, Nottinghamshire, in 1891.
He was the son of Thomas Screaton and his wife Maria Augusta Florence (née Bailey) who were married at All Saints Church, Loughborough, on 16th June 1886.
Thomas Junior’s father was a bricklayer who worked for his own father, a building contractor. Thomas Junior had one brother Percy and four sisters Beatrice, Florence, Dorothy and Constance.
The Screaton family lived in Main Street, Willoughby on the Wolds.
When he left school Thomas Junior became a bricklayer like his father.
On 18th June 1913 he married Edith Gutteridge at St. Mary’s Church, Loughborough, and the young couple settled at 50 Howard Street, Loughborough.
They had two children Thomas Thorold (born in 1914) and Edith (born in 1916).
Thomas Junior probably enlisted at some point in 1916 but as his service record has not survived the precise date of his enlistment is unknown. He joined the Royal Garrison Artillery (RGA) and trained as a Gunner.
He was then posted to India as Gunner 161964 to join the 68th Heavy Battery which was stationed in the garrison at Cawnpore [now Kanpur], Uttar Pradesh.
The 68th Heavy Battery and spent the entire war in India.
Reinforcements were needed in India as so many of the experienced troops stationed there had been withdrawn for action on the Western front, in Egypt and Mesopotamia. These troops were replaced by less experienced men.
The 68th Heavy Battery of the RGA had a total strength of 130 all ranks. The usual armaments were 60 pounder (5 inch) guns, although some Heavy Batteries had obsolescent 5 inch howitzers.
Extant Army records relating to Thomas Junior in India give conflicting
information. Thomas appears to have disappeared on Christmas Day 1918. The entry for Thomas Screaton, 73 Coy RGA, in the Service Medal and Award Rolls (National Archives), notes that his ‘Medals for service prior to 16th January 1919’ were ‘forfeited for desertion’.
The Army’s Registers of Soldiers’ Effects 1901-1929 contains two entries for Thomas, linked together by a cross-reference.
One entry under T.T. Screaton, Gunner 161968 [sic], 68th Heavy Battery RGA, states that he ‘Deserted at Rooka’, while the other entry under Thomas Screaton, Gunner 161964, 68th Heavy Battery RGA, states that he ‘Died on or since 25th December 1918’.
‘Rooka’ might mean ‘Roorkee’, a city in Uttarakhand, North India where there was a British garrison.
Alternatively, and perhaps less likely, ‘Rooka’ might mean the ‘Roka’ Ceremony of a traditional Hindu wedding.
Whatever the truth of the matter the Army authorities issued a death certificate which read ‘Died on or since 25-12-1918 (presumed).
Cause of death: . Reported Missing 25-12-1918. Cause of death not known’.
A pension was paid to Thomas’s widow.
Thomas is commemorated on the Delhi Memorial (India Gate), Face 1.
Thomas’s brother Percy served with the Grenadier Guards and survived the war.