Branch secretary, Mrs Christine Greaves was able to lay a wreath at the Menin Gate on Saturday 27th June during her recent visit to Belgium. Christine is seen here with Mr Alan Caswell, M.B.E. chair of Bayston Hill Memorial Hall and Mr Anthony Florian, Vice Chair.
The wreath was laid in memory of Private William Robinson, K.S.L.I. 15783 5th Bn. who is remembered on the war memorial at Oxon church; and Private James Morris, K.S.L.I. 7292, remembered at Bicton.
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James was born in Ford in 1868 to Thomas, an Agricultural Labourer, and Sarah nee Hotchkiss; brother to John and Mary. At the age of 13 he was a servant to John and Mary Jones at Rhossal Grove.
In 1901, at the age of 34, he was a builders’ labourer and he, wife Emily, a daughter and two sons lived at 8 Kitchener Street in Birmingham. James and his family returned to Bicton in the early 1900s where he was a farm labourer living at Isle Gate in Bicton with his wife and children Thomas, John, James, Maggie and Edith, their eldest daughter, Sarah having died in 1902 while living in Birmingham.
He enlisted in the 3rd (Special Reserve) K.S.L.I. on 7th September 1914 and took part in the South African War. He was posted to the 2nd Bn., King's Shropshire Light Infantry.
He died in the Second Battle of Ypres, Stage II the Bellewaarde Lines on 10 May 1915 Aged 46.
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William was born on 29th January, 1893 in Caton, Lancashire, one of nine children to Robert and Mary Eleanor Robinson nee Kitchen.
At the age of 18 William was working in a cotton mill as a labourer.
Although William lived most of his life in Lancashire, he enlisted in Shrewsbury and first served in a field of war on 22nd May, 1915 therefore it possible he joined at the time the 5th Bn was formed in August 1914.
The 5th (Service) Bn landed at Boulogne-sur-Mer, France as part of the 42nd Brigade in the 14th (Light) Division in May 1915 for service on the Western Front. During the summer of that year, they occupied trenches in Ypres.
William was killed in action on 25th September, 1915 aged 22, which was the time of the Loos Offensive at Railway Wood. His death was reported in both the Wellington Journal & Shrewsbury News and the Ludlow Advertiser on 16th October, 1915. Both editions summarise the heavy casualties suffered by the 5th Bn on the Western Front; some 386 men.
He was awarded the three main campaign medals; 1914-1915 Star; The British War Medal and the Victory Medal. His parents were still residing at 26 Hope Street, Lancaster at the time of his death.
Both James and William were casualties of the brutal trench warfare which continued in the area up to 1918, where the front-line trenches were less than 100 yards apart!
