Tag Archives: Great War

Glastonbury, Great War, history, People, Photography, story, war

CWG: Private Stanley Counsell

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Stanley John Counsell was born in September 1896 to George and Ellen, farmers in Glastonbury.

The youngest of five children, Stanley was an apprentice carpenter by the time he enlisted with his brothers Lawrence and Wilfred.

Private Counsell joined the Worcestershire Regiment in 1915 and was sent into action in France in September 1916.

He suffered medically during the war, succumbing to tonsillitis and diarrhoea during his time in France. A bout of tuberculosis in late 1918 saw Stanley shipped back to the UK and admitted to a hospital in Newcastle-upon Tyne.

The end of the Great War came and went, and Stanley was finally discharged from the army in March 1919, as he was no longer medically fit for war service.

On 2nd May 1919, less than six weeks after being discharged, Private Stanley Counsell passed away. He was a victim not of the war, but of the subsequent influenza pandemic, which killed 250,000 people in the UK alone.

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/146326854/stanley-john-counsell

Great War, history, People, Photography, war

CWG: Private Roberts Hallett

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Private Roberts Pretoria Hallett was born in the summer of 1900, to Frank – a shepherd from Charlton Adam – and Emily, who came from Charlton Mackrell. Roberts (the correct spelling) was the youngest of eleven children.

Roberts was just twelve when his father died, and, when war came, he enlisted in Taunton, along with his brothers, Francis and William. The Great War was not kind to Emily Hallett: her son William died while fighting in India in 1916; Francis died in the Third Battle of Ypres in June 1917.

Roberts was assigned to the 5th Battalion Royal Warwickshire Regiment; while I’ve been unable to identify exactly when he saw battle, by the last year of the war he would have been involved in the fighting in northern Italy.

What we can say for certainty was that is was shipped home at some point towards the end of the war, and died – presumably of his injuries – in Newcastle-upon-Tyne on 16th October 1918.

William Hallett was buried in India, Francis in Belgium. Private Roberts Hallett, therefore, is the only one of the three brothers to be buried in the churchyard of St Mary’s in his birthplace of Charlton Mackrell.

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/203685613

Great War, history, People, Photography, war

CWG: Private Quinton Wyatt

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Private Quinton Charles Wyatt was born in the Gloucestershire town of Northleach in 1893 to William and Elizabeth. His mother died when he was a toddler and, by the time war was declared, Quinton was working as a farm labourer and waggoner.

He joined the 8th Battalion of the South Staffordshire Regiment on 22nd November 1915. He was posted to France four months later, but medically discharged from the Army on Boxing Day 1917.

Private Wyatt died in Charlton Mackrell on 11th November 1918 – Armistice Day – and buried in St Mary’s churchyard.

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/203685657

Great War, history, People, Photography, war

CWG: Private Gilbert Drew

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Gilbert Victor Drew was born in Dinder, Somerset in 1898, the youngest of the eight children of James and Theresa Drew, a groom/coachman and laundress respectively.

He enlisted 11th December 1915 and joined the 1st Batallion Somerset Light Infantry. While I have been unable to fond any specific details, Private Gilbert would have seen action on the Western Front. He was discharged from the army on 3rd February 1917 as, according to the records, he was “no longer physically fit for war service.”

Private Gilbert Victor Drew died on 1st July 1917, and was buried in the graveyard of the Church of St Michael in his home village.

He was one of six villagers to fall during the Great War.

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/139081327/gilbert-victor-drew