Albert Leggatt 1890-1916

Albert Edward George Leggatt

1890-1916

Albert Edward George Leggatt was born in the autumn of 1890 in Petworth in Sussex. His parents Albert Leggatt and Ethel Combes were married in the autumn of 1888 in Petworth at about the same time as their first child, Florence, was born. Albert Edward was their second child and he was followed by Kathleen in 1893 and Faith in 1895. The family then moved to Midhurst where Albert senior was employed as a house painter. The family grew while they lived there with the addition of Ethel in 1897, Violet in 1899 and Richard in 1901. In 1901 they were living at The Square in Midhurst and ten years later living in a large house just off the Petersfield Road with six of the seven children and two boarders.

Albert Edward volunteered for military service with the Territorial Army and was posted to the 1/5^th (Cinque Ports) Battalion, Royal Sussex Regiment. The 1/5^th Battalion went to France in 1915 under the command of the 2^nd Brigade in the 1^st division. They took part in the Battle of Mons, the first Battle of Ypres and Battle of Loos. In the summer of 1915 the battalion was transferred to the 48^th (South Midland) Division as a pioneer battalion.

By the end of 1916, each division comprised of several fighting battalions and a pioneer battalion. The members of the pioneer battalion were trained to fight but their main duty was engineering. Their role was to deal with communication and transport, move stores and munitions, repair structures and fortifications and build new ones. The most unpleasant part of their duties was the recovery and burial of those killed. The 1/5^th Sussex were slightly unusual in that they also provided back up in a fighting role as they were previously trained to do so and had been active soldiers in previous years.

The Battle of Ancre was the final battle of the Somme series in the long struggle which had been raging since July 2016. It brought together thousands of allied troops on a long front, each with its own mission and target. The 1/5^th Sussex were not directly involved in the attack and one war diary records nothing more than “making screens, cutting long grass, making horse stands, repairing billets, erecting tents and preparing camp” on the 13^th and 14^th November. On the 14^th a group of men from the battalion were working in the churchyard at Martinpuich when they were hit by a shell. Twelve men died, including Albert Leggatt and they are buried together at Martinpuich British Cemetery.

His family stayed on in Mid Sussex where his mother died in 1929 and his father in 1947. All of his brothers and sisters married and had children.

Albert was a very distant relation. My 4x great grandfather, Richard Coombes was Albert’s great grandfather making him a third cousin twice removed.

In Memory of

Private A E G LEGGATT

5/6526, 5th Bn., Royal Sussex Regiment

who died

on 14 November 1916

Remembered with honour

MARTINPUICH BRITISH CEMETERY

http://www.westernfrontassociation.com/

http://www.hartleyfamily.org.uk/llechw.htm

Harry Hook

Harry Hook

14^th February 1894-3^rd September 1916

Harry Hook was born on 14^th February 1894 at West Horsley in Surrey, the sixth of ten children born to George and Fanny Hook. George Hook and Fanny Arthur were married in the summer of 1880 at Wonersh. Their daughter Katherine was baptised just before the marriage also at Wonersh. The family lived at Shamley Green for a few years and their first two sons were born there; George in 1882 and William in 1885. In 1886 the family moved to The Chalk Pit at West Horsley just off the main Guildford to Leatherhead Road. It is likely that George Hook was a labourer in the chalk pit or the lime kilns which were located here. Seven more children were born to the couple while they were living here; Frederick in 1887, James in 1889, Annie in 1891, Harry in 1894, Minnie in 1896, Arthur in 1899 and Sidney in 1901.

Harry was recorded on the 1911 census living at home and working as a gardener in a market garden. He joined the 11th (Service) Battalion, Rifle Brigade but it is not clear when. The battalion was formed in 1915 in  Winchester as part of Kitchener’s Army and was part of the 59^th brigade in the 20^th (Light) Division. They trained on Blackdown then at Witley before moving in April 1915 to Salisbury Plain. The battalion went to France in July 1915 and in July 1916 moved from Ypres to Wormhoudt. It then moved to various locations around the area until late August when it arrived at Meaulte near Albert to begin preparations for the recapture of the village of Guillemont.

Guillemont was a village near Albert which was of strategic importance. It had been held by the Germans during attacks at the end of August and at the beginning of September, the 20^th Division were tasked with capturing it.

The war diary gives details of the action. On the 1^st September the 6^th Oxford and Bucks Battalion joined the brigade thus strengthening numbers. The plan then was to attack on the 3^rd September from positions all around the village. The 11^th Rifle Brigade was posted to the right sector. The attack was to begin from the front line trenches and on the night of the 2^nd the troops moved into position. It was described in the diary as a “particularly quiet” night

The attack began at six in the morning of the 3^rd with the infantry, including the 20^th Division, beginning their action at noon. The action was successful and by the next day the village was in allied hands. However, there were many casualties on both sides and somewhere in the fighting on September 3^rd, Harry Hook was killed. He was just 22 years old.

He is buried in Guillemont Road Cemetery along with seventy-four other allied troops killed at Guillemont that day. On the site of the battlefield is a memorial to the 20^th Division.

Sadly not many of Harry’s family lived to a good age although his father, George, remained in West Horsley until his death at the age of 83.

Harry’s mother mother Fanny had died in 1913 aged 55. His sister Catherine and brother Arthur died as children and his brother Frederick in 1924 aged 37. Neither Frederick nor his brothers James and Sidney married.  William married and had four children and Minnie married and had two.

Guillemont Road Cemetery

With thanks to

www.1914-1918.invisionzone.com

www.wartimememoriesproject.com/greatwar/index.php

www.1914-1918.net/rb.htm

www.cwgc.org/

Cecil Luff 1893-1916

Cecil Luff

1893-1916

Cecil Luff was born at the beginning of 1893 in Kirdford in Sussex. His parents, Edward Luff and Elizabeth Childs, married in the Petworth registration district in the summer of 1877 and their first child, Lilian, was born at the beginning of 1878 in Fernhurst. The family were still in Fernhurst for the arrival of Horace in 1879 but soon afterwards moved to Kirdford where May was born in 1882, then Archibald in 1887, Annie in 1889 and Cecil in 1893. Two years later they were at Fittleworth for the birth of Nellie and by 1899 in Lyminster where Ernest was born.

In 1901 the family were at Priory Farm in Tortington near Arundel in Sussex. Edward and his son Archibald were both cowmen as was their lodger. Lilian was a cook, the younger children Cecil and Nellie were scholars and Ernest was just 2. The last of the couple’s nine children, Olive was born in Slinfold in 1902.

In 1911 the family were living at Baldhorns Farm Cottage south of the village of Rusper. The farm was a beef farm and very remote although just a few miles west of Crawley. Both Cecil and his father Edward were cowmen on the farm and were living there were his mother Elizabeth, twelve year old brother Ernest and younger sister Olive aged 9.

In June 1915, Cecil joined the 4^th battalion Royal Sussex Regiment which had been formed from a pre-war territorial battalion. A few weeks later, the battalion sailed from Devonport on HMT Ulysses and arrived on 29^th July in Alexandra as part of the Mediterranean Expeditionary Force. From Alexandria, the troops moved on via Port Said to Gallipoli, arriving there on August 4^th.

They fought at Gallipoli throughout the autumn and were part of the evacuation of the peninsula in December 1915, returning to Egypt. By this time the battalion had lost most of its members and over the next few months new recruits were drafted in. They spent all of January training and it was noted that all ranks showed improvement in smartness and drill and that the health of all ranks was satisfactory. Also that all clothing and blankets had been through the steam disinfector and fresh clothing handed out to clear the lice. Most of February was spent training again but they had moved to a camp with better roads so most of the training was marching. March and April saw more training this time in bayonet fighting, grenade throwing and machine gun operation as well as night time practice.

During May the training was concluded and the battalion moved to Katoomba where they manned the trenches and observation posts. They were engaged in maintaining defences for the next few weeks as more recruits joined the battalion. However, there appears to have been an outbreak of diphtheria in the ranks at this time, probably brought from home by one of the new recruits. Deaths are recorded on 24^th, 25^th and 28^th June from diphtheria. The 28^th of June case was Cecil Luff.

He died in No 17 General Hospital in Alexandria which was located in a school called Victoria College. There were several military hospitals in Alexandria which took in wounded men from theatres of war in the region. They would be brought in by hospital train or ship. A new cemetery to serve these hospitals was opened in April 1916 and it is there that Cecil Luff is buried. It is very sad that Cecil went through all the training in a comparatively quiet theatre of war and survived the infamous Gallipoli campaign only to be killed by a simple but deadly infection.

Back home, Cecil’s parents moved to Worthing where they both died in the 1930s. They had plenty of grandchildren from their surviving seven children. Cecil’s brother Ernest died in October 1918 in France.

ALEXANDRIA (HADRA) WAR MEMORIAL CEMETERY

www.battlefields1418.50megs.com

www.roll-of-honour.com/

www.wartimememoriesproject.com/

www.armyservicenumbers.blogspot.co.uk

www.cwgc.org

www.westsussex.gov.uk

Charles Robert Francis 31 August 1892-1 June 1916

Charles Robert Francis

31 August 1892-1 June 1916

Charles Francis was born on 31st August 1892 at Shalford in Surrey and was baptised at St Mary’s Church on November 6^th. His parents Frank Francis and Eliza Perry were married at St Nicholas Cranleigh on 27 June 1889. Two days later, their first child Frederick John was born in Cranleigh. Eighteen months later saw the family living at Ewhurst where they welcomed Alfred. Two years after that Charles was born at Shalford and two years after that Harriet at Abinger. They were still at Abinger for the arrival of Bessie in 1897 and back at Ewhurst for the final addition to the family, William in 1905. On all the records Frank was listed as a general labourer so presumably many changes of employment accounted for many changes of location.

Charles joined the navy on 31 August 1910 at Portsmouth, signing on for 12 years. He was eighteen years old, stood 5ft 5ins and had dark brown hair and grey eyes. His first ship, with the rank of boy 2^nd class, was the Ganges 1, which was a shore training establishment at Shotley in Suffolk. He progressed through the ranks becoming an able seaman in October 1911. On 3 December 1915 he joined HMS Tipperary, a destroyer.

A few months later the ship was at the heart of the Battle of Jutland along with her sister ships, H.M.S. Spitfire. H.M.S. Sparrowhawk, H.M.S. Broke and H.M.S. Ardent. Just before midnight on May 31^st 1916, the four ships were engaged in heavy and close hand fighting with German warships. Tipperary was badly damaged and on fire, but managed to inflict a great deal of damage before in the early hours of June 1^st, she went down. HMS Sparrowhawk and Ardent also sank while Broke and Spitfire made it home. Almost all of the crew of HMS Tipperary were lost including Charles Francis. His body was never recovered and he is commemorated on the Portsmouth War Memorial.

By the time Charles died, his sister Harriet was married and her second child, born in 1919, was named Robert. Charles’s mother Eliza died in 1918 in Ewhurst at the age of 48 and his father Frank stayed on and also died there in 1940. Charles was a first cousin twice removed. His grandfather Robert Perry was my great great grandfather.

Acknowledgments

www.cwgc.org

www.northeastmedals.co.uk

www.naval-history.net

Alfred John Humphrey 25 January 1893-31 May 1916

Alfred John Humphrey was born in Fernhurst in Sussex on 25^th January 1893, the illegitimate child of Maria Winifred Humphrey. Alfred lived with his grandparents William and Mary Ann  at Hillgrove near Lurgashall in Sussex and the 1901 census lists him there with his widowed grandfather, mother Maria and two cousins, William Humphrey and Rose White. Later that year his mother married Jessie Dalmon in Lurgashall and they had two children, Winifred in 1902 and Alice in 1905. In 1911 the family were living at Northchapel where both Alfred and his step father Jesse were farm labourers.

However, the sea was calling and Alfred joined the navy at Portsmouth on 28 May 1912, signing on for 12 years. He was described as 5ft 6ins in height with brown hair, hazel eyes and a dark complexion. His rank on joining was stoker 2^nd class and his first ship was Victory II which was actually a shore based training depot at Portsmouth. Later he served on a variety of ships including H.M.S Thetis a minelayer.

In the spring of 1913 he was promoted to stoker 1^st class and served throughout the first years of World War 1 on various ships including HMS Amethyst which took part in the Gallipoli landings.

On 27 April 1916, Alfred joined the crew of HMS Queen Mary, a modern battlecruiser. Six weeks later, she sailed for Denmark as part of the British fleet sent to halt the German attacks on the eastern coast of Britain and to fight the now famous Battle of Jutland.

The battle began with a German advance in the Skagerrak, south east of Norway. British intelligence had deciphered German coded messages and Admiral Jellicoe ordered the British fleet to sea. On the afternoon of May 31^st, fifty two British ships faced forty German and the fighting was fierce.

HMS Queen Mary fought hard and inflicted damage on three German ships but she was targeted by shells, one of which hit the forward magazine which exploded. The ship then quickly sank, taking with her 1266 crew, including Alfred Humphrey and his fellow stokers. He was just twenty three years old and one of thousands of men killed that day. In all the British navy lost fourteen ships and 6084 men, while the Germans lost eleven ships and 2551 men. His body was never recovered and he is commemorated on the Portsmouth War Memorial.

Back home in Sussex, Alfred’s family stayed in Northchapel and his sisters both married there; Winifred in 1933 and Alice in 1929. His mother Maria died in 1933 in Guildford. Alfred was a second cousin three times removed. His grandfather Robert Luff was my four times great grandfather.

With thanks to

The Great War Forum

www.northeastmedals.co.uk

Commonwealth War Graves Commission