Tower and Town, November 2024 (view the full edition)RememberanceNovember is the month for remembering. "Remember, remember the fifth of November, Gunpowder, treason and plot..." Perhaps more significantly it is the month of Armistice Day and Remembrance Sunday. Our churches and towns, our parks and churchyards are full of memorials of one kind or another to those who have died in conflict. The photo here shows part of the memorial in the Lady Chapel in St Peter's Church containing the names of those from the parish who died in the First World War. We see the names, some familiar local families still today, but often we do not know the stories behind these names. Here are a few from this plaque.
On 21st March 1918 the Germans launched their big offensive known as "Operation Michael", forcing the British and French troops to retreat and surrender all their hard-won gains of 1916 and 1917. On 23rd/24th March the area around St Quentin fell and the road was open to Amiens across the old 1916 Somme battlefields. Sydney's Division began to make a fighting withdrawal through the towns and villages of that area in what became known as the First Battles of the Somme 1918. On 24th/25th March the fighting was focussed around Bapaume and it was here that Sydney was killed. During this last week of March the Division lost over half its fighting strength. Sydney was 29 years old and is commemorated on the Arras memorial, having no known grave. William Robert Hill Merriman: William was the son of Robert William and Edith Hannah Merriman of Sempringham, a large house on the west side of the Salisbury Road in Marlborough, near to George Lane. William was a scholar of Winchester College and New College, Oxford, and before the war had been a civil servant in the Inland Revenue. William served in the 8th Battalion of the Rifle Brigade which formed part of the 14th (Light) Division. He was killed in action on 15th August 1916, and is buried in the Quarry cemetery at Montauban. However his original burial site was at Longueval (Green Dump cemetery), which links him with the intense fighting for the control of Delville Wood during July and August 1916. This battle of Delville Wood is one of the most infamous of all the conflicts in the Battle of the Somme. Earlier in July South Africans had been sent in to try to clear the wood and suffered horrendous casualties, which is why today the wood is the site of the South African First World War Memorial. It was into this desperate situation that the 14th Division (of which William's battalion was a part) was dispatched to relieve the 17th Division on the 12th August. Seventeen days later the wood was finally cleared of the last remaining German defenders, but by then William along with a great many other of his regiment had been killed - a young man of 34 years of age who had been mentioned in dispatches "for gallant and distinguished service in the field".
Thomas was killed by an explosion when his ship, HMS Princess Irene, blew up while being loaded with mines in the Medway estuary just off Sheerness, prior to deployment on a mine-laying mission. A total of 352 people died in the Princess Irene explosion, including 273 officers and men, and 76 dockyard workers. The devastation caused by the explosion was horrific. Flames rose 100 metres into the sky and a huge pall of smoke hung over the Kentish shoreline. Wreckage of all sorts was scattered up to 20 miles from the scene of the explosion, from which there was just one survivor from the ship itself. An inquiry into the explosion blamed the accident on the hurried priming of the mines by untrained personnel; possible sabotage was ruled out by a later investigation. Thomas Maurice is remembered on the Portsmouth Naval Memorial pictured opposite. David Du Croz |
Sydney Napier Hillier: Hillier's Yard in Marlborough is the site of the old builder's yard of the Hillier family who lived at 21 High Street. Sydney was the youngest son of Benjamin and Elizabeth, and served in the 6th Battalion of the South Wales Borderers in the First World War.
Thomas Hector Molesworth Maurice: Thomas, a member of the Maurice medical family, was a Commander in the Royal Navy when he died aged 37 on the 27th May 1915. His parents were James and Mary Maurice of 40, High Street and his wife was Cicely Maurice.