With a population of a little over 1000 people, Chudleigh Knighton is a quiet and peaceful Devon village in the early 21st Century. Turn the clock back a century, and it was a smaller, quieter place, where everyone knew everyone else.

The impact of a death as a result of the First World War would have been keenly felt, therefore. So how would two deaths have impacted the village? What about three?

The small graveyard of St Paul’s Church at the heart of the village is the last resting place of three soldiers from that time: Private Thomas Willcocks, Private Albert Gale and Guardsman Alfred Moist.

Their stories tell us as much about life in the countryside at the turn of the last century as any textbook.

Click on the images above to learn more about their stories.

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The book Death and Service unravels the lives for more than 250 men and women laid to rest in the cemeteries and graveyards of Somerset.

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