Category Archives: Army

Arthur Penton Strong

Army, Commemorated name/s, Other Regiments, Passchendaele

Arthur Penton Strong
Lieutenant 7th Battalion Northumberland Fusiliers

Division 32

Strong AP photo

Arthur Penton Strong was the son of Arthur and Kate Strong, of Reading.  He is commemorated on the footstone of the family grave. The 1891 census indicates that Arthur had three younger brothers and an older sister his father was a builder and contractor. Kate’s brother also lived with the family. They lived at 5. Zinzan Street, Reading. By 1901 Arthur’s father had died and the family were living at 215, King’s Road, Reading. Arthur was now aged 17 and employed as a factory clerk. In 1911 Kate was living at 30. Telford Avenue with her younger sons. It has not been possible to trace Arthur through the 1911 census.

Arthur was killed in action on 26th October 1917, Aged 34.  This was the first day of what came to be known as the Second Battle of Passchendaele.   On this day the British and their allies improved their positions from Passchendaele to Poelcapelle.   Matrix tells us that the attack began at 5.40am.  On either side of the Menin road the British 7th and 5th Divisions were frustrated by marshes.  The Australians and Canadians took their objectives moving off in a mist that became a heavy rain as the day progressed.  The Canadians had 70% casualties.  Poelcapelle means church in the bog and it was in a bog that the British fought.  Several days later New Zealand troops came upon the remains of the Northumberland Fusiliers and Durham Light infantry lying in rows where they had been mown down by German machine guns as they had made their advance on the first day of the battle.

Arthur Penton Strong is buried in Poelcapelle British Cemetery. Location XXXVII. F. 19

This cemetery was made after the Armistice by the concentration of graves from other cemeteries and from the battle fields.  The great majority of the dead fell in the last five months of 1917, particularly the month of October.

 

J Starkie

Army, Other Regiments, Registered War Grave

Driver J. Starkie
T/16298 292 Company
Army Service Corps.

Division 49

 space for headstone

J. Starkie  was 34 years old and died on the 8th August 1915.  He was  the son of Samuel and Mary Starkie of Blackburn, Lancashire and  the husband of Sophia Starkie, of 40, Sunny Bank, Mytholmroyd, Yorkshire.

Starkie died in a tragic boating accident whilst based near Reading.  He and Private J. J. McKeever, an Irish man born at Waterside, were in a Canadian canoe on the Thames at Tilehurst when the canoe capsized and both soldiers were drowned.  Neither man could swim.  The Coroners verdict was that of “Accidental Drowning”.

During the war years there were many such accidents on the Thames, sometimes of army personelle and sometimes civilians and children.  Many drownings were accidental, some were acts of suicide.

Mrs Starkie attended the funeral and also Thomas Logue, the brother in law of McKeeveer.  A volley was fired and the “Last Post played”.  The grave of Driver Starkie is marked by a CWGC war pattern headstone.  Private McKeever is also buried in the cemetery in Division 14

Leonard Noel Sutton

Army, Berkshire Yeomanry, Graves

Page under construction

Noel Sutton
Captain Berkshire Yeomanry

Division 65

Sutton N photo

 

Leonard Noel Sutton was the grandson of Martin Hope Sutton and the eldest and only surviving son of Leonard Goodhart Sutton and his wife Mary Charlotte (nee Seaton).  Born in 1894 he died in 1965 and is buried with his father and mother in the family grave.