Gunner Percy Sawyer Canadian Expeditionary Force
Service Number: 40016
HQ 1st Brigade Canadian Field Artillery
Attested Valcartier 23 September 1914
Died 21 October 1914 by being accidentally dragged by horse at Westdown North Camp
Age 19 years old – Born 4th June 1891 Rickmansworth Herts
Next of Kin – Brother Thomas Sawyer Stonehall Lodge, Oxted, Surrey
Son of John and Sarah Sawyer.
Gunner Walter Pendleton Canadian Expeditionary Force
Service Number: 43171
Driver 1st Heavy Battery Canadian Field Artillery
Born 11 June 1890 Montreal, Quebec
Attested Valcartier 24 September 1914
Died 09 November 1914 Not being of sound mind committed suicide in Westdown Camp North.
Next of Kin – Walter Pendleton/ Mrs N Gagnon 126 Cathedral St, Montreal
Private Charles Matthews Canadian Expeditionary Force
Service Number: 33217
2nd Field Ambulance Canadian Army Medical Corps
Born 22 Feb 1892 East India
Civilian Employment – Crane Operator
Resident of Hamilton Ontario
Attested 23 September 1914 Valcartier
Died 11 December 1914 Fitting out old stone house on Lavington to Pond Farm Road, lifting an old door he fell down an old well underneath the door.
Next of Kin Brother Fred Matthews 39 Kinrades Ave, Hamilton
Flying Officer Daniel Percy Crittall Royal Air Force
Service Number: 41559 – 225 Squadron Royal Air Force
On 11 October 1939 225 Squadron was reformed at Odiham, equipped with Westland Lysanders. 225 Squadron were based at RAF Tilshead between the 1st of July 1940 and the 29th of July 1941. The unpaved airfield was open from 1925 until 1941.
Daniel died aged 24 when his Lysander III R9128 aircraft crashed at Old Sarum on the 21st of October 1940. The official report states – At 12.25 hrs the plane crashed on take-off killing the Pilot Flying Officer 41559 Daniel Percy Crittal and Sergeant 625563 William Batson who was the aircraft Wireless Operator and Air Gunner.
Daniel was the son of Holroyd Berrington Crittall and Ethel Lily Crittall and husband of Mary Marjorie Crittall, of Liverpool.
Personal Inscription:
DEARLY LOVED BY HIS WIFE MARY MARJORIE AND ETHEL, HOLROYD AND BETTY
Pioneer Walter Gilbert Ford
Birth registered 1st Qtr 1893 in Amesbury – Birth Register Volume 5a Page 162 refers
Death registered in 4th Qtr (Oct) 1918 in Amesbury – Death Register Volume 5a Page 363 refers
Recorded in the 1911 Census as an Assistant Blacksmith living with:
- Father – Walter Ford aged 43 born Tilshead. Occupation: Blacksmith
- Mother – Kate Alice Ford aged 44 born Salisbury
- Sister – Alice Irene Ford aged 16 born Tilshead
- Brother – Henry Heator Ford aged 8 born Tilshead
Service Number 254951 Walter Ford Royal Engineers is recorded as enlisting on 1 Oct 1916. His civilian trade is then recorded as being an ‘electrician’s assistant’. He was attested 1 Mar 1917 in Croydon and was posted on 7 Mar 1917 to the Royal Engineers. He undertook a medical on 22 Mar Wrest Park Camp, Silsoe Near Hitchin and was Classified C2 – Labour Corps.
His Labour Corps Service Number was 337119 and he was posted on 4 Aug 1917 to 589 Coy Labour Corps and then on 13 Apr 1918 was posted 338 (HS) Labour Corps Works Coy.
Discharged 17 July 1918 as a consequence of infantile paralysis wasting of left leg – which was 4 inches shorter than right. Aged 9 he fell off his bike which clearly resulted in a severe injury to his left leg.
His Pension record card shows he died on 20 November 1918 after he had been discharged. His pension record records ‘Died of Decease’ (was this Spanish Flu)?
November 1918 saw instances of influenza and suspected Spanish Flu in the village, indeed the Thomas a Becket School history records only 18 children attended school in that month so it was closed until the health of the local population improved.
At the time of his death his parents were then living at 2 Mill Cottage Tilshead.
He is buried in a Commonwealth War Grave Commission registered grave in the Tilshead Cemetery even though he was not ‘in service’ at the time of his sad death.
George Clegg