Those who Served in the Great War

 

Nearly 90 men associated with Englefield served in the Great War. The Rector published lists in the parish magazine from time to time naming those who had recently enlisted. Generally, these  lists were restricted to men from the village itself and the “numbered houses”, that is the outlying estate houses at Mayridge, Chalkpit and Parker’s Corner that have numbers in sequence following on from those along the village street. However, many men who worked on the Estate lived even further afield, such as George Parsons at Tidmarsh, and Herbert Marshall and Albert Parsons at North Street.

 

A total of 86 men associated with the village are known to have served in the Great War, 13 of whom did not return. Another 13 men are known to have been wounded (Albert Seymour four times) or otherwise hospitalised on active service and three were awarded the Military Medal. The list of names is compiled from the Parish Magazine. It will be noted that William Horne appears twice in the list and the Rector notes that he was called-up in 1917 “for the second time”. It is not known why he did not get taken into service on the first time in 1916 but it was not unknown for an individual to be rejected initially on medical grounds, only to be accepted later in the War when there was a desperate need for men. Arthur Hazell in Australia was one who succeeded at the second attempt. Seymour Joyce who volunteered in October 1914 had already served for 21 years in the Regular Army.

 

The Englefield Gardens erected their own plaque listing the staff who served in the First World War, and this includes some whose names were not published in the Parish Magazine. These were: Robert Bolt, George Duckett, Albert Lambert, John Monger and Albert Ware. The reason for this is probably because these men working at the gardens actually lived outside the parish and the various houses associated with it; George Duckett was living in High Street, Theale, for example, in 1914. The Edward Cotterill on the plaque we may assume to be Edward Cottrell who was a gardener and lived at the Bradfield Lodges. Others associated with the village who served but were not listed by the Rector include William Milne MM* and Herbert Marshall.

 

Early Volunteers

 

Ten men from Englefield are recorded as already serving in the first month of the war. These would have already been serving in the Regular forces at the outbreak of war, like Herbert Parsons from North Street, Walter Cox (in uniform at his father's funeral in July 1914) or mobilised members of the TF. Reginald Briant was also in the Royal Navy and only just old enough in 1914. Stephen Claydon was serving with the Royal Army Medical Corps and Charles Smyth in the Royal Marines. In the Berkshire Yeomanry were Henry Benyon, Dick Partlo, Arthur Claydon, George Claydon and Walter Edge. John Vince was in the Grenadier Guards.

 

These were followed by 12 more from the village in the first month, all in the New Army. They were Fred Fisher, Harold Willcox, Gilbert Cox, George Cox, Arthur Dance, George Jackson, Henry Beer, Ernest Davis, William Seymour, Albert Bryant, William Yarlett and Arthur Hurst. From the surrounding parts of the estate also serving by this time were Albert Fisher, William Rouse, Alfred Day, F Parsons, R Parsons, J Parsons, Edward Van Veen, Leonard Nash and Tom Nash. Jesse Briant, J Greenough and Seymour Joyce had been in hospital "getting fit to serve".

 

In 1914 and 15 enlistment was voluntary and those who did so were effectively joining the Regular Army for three years or the duration, whichever the longer, and had to meet the same standards as the peace time Regulars. The age range was 18 to 38 but a man could not serve overseas under the age of 19. There was no necessity to provide proof of age though, or even of identity, so many under- or over-age men enlisted. There was a free choice of which unit to join and most men enlisted at the nearest unit or a local recruiting office, hence most of the Englefield men at this time joined the Royal Berkshire Regiment at the Reading depot in Brock Barracks.

 

While the men who enlisted in the Royal Berkshires at this time would have done so in one of the service battalions they did not necessarily stay with their original unit but might have been posted after training to one of the two Regular Army battalions as battle casualty replacements. Thus William Seymour found himself in the 2nd Battalion and Thomas Nash in the 1st Battalion.

 

Volunteering continued through 1915, though with the Regular and Service battalions then all overseas, training was conducted by the Special Reserve battalions and the soldiers were posted to one or other of the active service battalions.

 

Conscription

 

Voluntary enlistment was stopped in January 1916 and all British men between the ages of 19 and 41 who were unmarried or a widower on 2 November 1915 were automatically conscripted. On 25 May conscription was extended to married men and the lower age dropped to 18. Conscripted men no longer had a choice of which regiment to join but were posted after training to wherever there was a need. By then there were few left who had not already volunteered except for those who were only just reaching 18 or who had been ineligible until the maximum age was raised to 50 in 1918. There can have been very few, if any, men of an age to serve who did not do so.