Decorated and Wounded

 

A number of Englefield men are known to have been wounded and some were decorated, based on reports by the Rector and photographs published in the Reading Standard.

 

Arthur Dance served with the 2nd Battalion Royal Berkshire Regiment and was both wounded and decorated, losing a finger in 1916 and being awarded the Military Medal for gallantry and devotion to duty during the German advance of 1918, during which he was taken prisoner.

 

William Milne served with the Army Service Corps as a mechanical transport driver and was awarded the MM in March 1918, with a bar to the medal in October that year.

 

Albert Seymour (brother of William) was wounded four times but escaped the fate of his brother. Leonard Nash also spent some time in hospital with an injured foot before returning to duty and his death.

 

Alfred Vince enlisted with the 1st Battalion Royal Welsh Fusiliers on 15 Nov 1915 and was awarded the Military Medal, a decoration for “acts of gallantry and devotion to duty in the field”, gazetted on 8 Aug 1916. He was wounded and as a consequence discharged on 26 April 1918 and granted the Silver War Badge. He was the son of William and Keturah Vince and brother of William at 7 the Street and was a blacksmith on the Estate.

 

Charles Pocock, son of Frederick and Alice Pocock who kept the village shop and bakery, enlisted in the Grenadier Guards in December 1915 on reaching 18 and was mobilised in September 1916. He went to France on 2 March 1917 and received a gunshot wound to the right thigh on 12 October but seems not to have been repatriated for he continued in France until 14 May 1919.

 

William Yarlett was the son of George and Charlotte Yarlett and lived with them at the Lodge Gates. George was a painter and William a carpenter, both working on the Estate, William having served his apprenticeship there He enlisted in 5th Royal Berkshires at Reading on 28 August 1914 and went with them to France on 30 May 1915. He returned home a year to the day after the declaration of war having received a gunshot wound to the head. He was then posted to the 3rd Battalion on 21 October 1915, after recovering from his wounds, then to the 8th Devonshires in January 1917 and ultimately to 312 Works Company of the Labour Corps in August 1917. He married Gertrude Mary Haines at St Bartholomew’s, Reading on 29 January 1916 and a son, Ronald William was born on 20 May 1917.

 

Arthur Thomas Claydon was the son of James and Clara Claydon and brother to Clara Annie who married William Milne. As noted earlier he served in the Berkshire Yeomanry before the outbreak of the War and went with them to Egypt and Gallipoli, where he was wounded. He was later commissioned into the Royal Field Artillery. His brother George who joined the Berkshire Yeomanry in 1912 was also wounded while serving in Gallipoli (by shrapnel in the right knee).

 

Others known to have been wounded were Alfred Lamperd, Frederick Fisher (whose son Graham would be killed in the next war), Albert Fisher, George Cox and William Vince. Henry Benyon was taken ill while serving in Egypt.

 

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