Category Archives: Battlefield Areas

Harry Tillen

Alfred Sutton School War Memorial, Jutland, Navy, Park Congregational Church War Memorial

Harry Tillen
Able Seaman Royal Navy H.M.S. “Invincible”

TILLEN H

 Harry Tillen was the son of Kate Allen (formerly Tillen) of 46, Crescent Road. (CWGC register gives spelling as Tillin)  The 1901 census indicates that Kate had married George Stephen Allen, a gasman’s labourer and they lived at 57 Foxhill Road, Reading. Harry was the youngest of Kate’s three children who are recorded as George’s step children. The 1911 census indicates that the family hadmoved to Crescent Road and Harry was working as a grocers errand boy. 

Harry Tillen was lost at sea and his name is commemorated on the Portsmouth Naval Memorial. His name is commemorated on the Alfred Sutton School Memorial  and also commemorated on the Park Church and Institute Memorial.   Harry Tillen was aged 20 years when he died.

 The H.M.S. “Invincible” was among the Battle Cruisers of the Grand Fleet which was reviewed by the King in July 1914.  The Britain Empire ruled the seas and was superior to any other Empire in the number of vessels at its disposal.  Harry Tillen would have been proud to serve as an able seaman in this navy.

 In 1916 with a stalemate on land it became the turn of the navies to try and break the deadlock at sea.  The British Grand Fleet was based in the Firth of Forth, Moray Firth and Scapa Flow;  the German High Seas Fleet at Wilhelmshaven.  On the morning of 31st May 1916 Mary Clarke, a young nursing sister on board the Grand Fleet Hospital Ship Plassy,  watched the cruisers steaming up and with the other nurses “wondered if there is really anything doing this time, there have been so many false alarms.”  She recorded in her diary that “this evening after dinner two or three officers arrived in board with note books etc to find out what accommodation we had got for the wounded, how many cots, how many stretchers etc & later on we got a signal to get full steam going, so as to sail at a moments notice.”  The battle cruisers she had watched in the morning had been setting out for Jutland, a Danish territory, by evening two of them had already been sunk by the German navy. The “anything doing” turned out to be Battle of Jutland, the only major sea battle of the Great War.

George E. Thatcher

Army, Commemorated name/s, Royal Berkshire Regiment, Somme

George E. Thatcher
Private 18098
1st Royal Berkshire Regiment

 Division 40

Thatcher GE photo  CIMG2200

George Edward Thatcher, known to his friends and family as Jack,  was the husband of
Mrs Sarah Thatcher (nee Clarke), of 6, River Road, Reading.  He is commemorated on a small scroll stone, on the grave of one of his children, number 10263.  Only the initials G.E.T. and Jack are written on the headstone but a CWGC search revealed his full name and details.  The 1911 census indicates that he was a tin solderer at the tin works and he had three children – Lily, Cyril and Evelyn. Sharing their five room family home were his sister in law and three brothers in law.

 George enlisted on 25 March 1915, serving first in the 3rd Battalion Royal Berkshire Regiment before moving to the 1st Battalion. He arrived in France in December 1915.  He was killed in action on the 14 November 1916, when the battalion were involved in the later stages of the Somme battle.  He was killed taking a trench.  Jack Thatcher is buried in Munich Trench British Cemetery, Beaumon Hamel, location C 31.  The cemetery contains many men who were killed in the same action and Jack lies near Fred Gray who is also commemorated in the Reading Cemetery and who died on the same day.

 George Thatcher was 37 when he was killed. The Chronicle of 8th December 1916 records that Jack was “killed instantly”, that he worked at Huntley, Bourne and Stevens before the war.  He left a wife and five children. The author has visited Munich Trench Cemetery which is rather out of the way on Redan Ridge and the visitors book which at the time went back to 1975  revealed that family members visited the grave in1992 and 1997.

 

Charles Stewart

Army, Commemorated name/s, Other Regiments, Ypres

Charles Stewart M.M.
Sergeant 8929
2nd West Yorkshire Regiment.

Division 35

 CIMG2114 Stewart C MM name

Charles Goldsmith Stewart was the son of Thomas Perkins Stewart and Ellen Stewart nee Goldsmith. He had one sister called Nina. His father had been an ironmonger but by the time of the 1901 census he was deceased. The family were then living at 83 London Road, Reading. By 1911 20year old Charles was serving in India with the 1st West Yorkshire Regiment. He is commemorated on his parents grave in Reading Cemetery number 12261. 

 He was  killed in action in July 1917 aged 26 years.  He has no known grave and his name is commemorated on the Menin Gate Memorial to the Missing, Ypres.  Panel 21. His sister, who was living at 105, Grovelands Road, Reading was listed in the additional information section of the CWGC register.

 It is not yet known how he gained his Military Medal.