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Boughton, Dunkirk & Hernhill
War Memorials



News Items:


During the course of the research for this website, we came across a number of other items of interest in local newspapers:


An extract from the Boughton and District Ambulance Brigade Minute book.


Meeting held on August 4th 1914

28 members present.   Chairman Dr Wonnacott


The Superintendent read to the meeting a telegram received late the previous evening from the Deputy Commissioner asking for volunteers from the Division to join the Expeditionary Force.


This being the first intimation to members that their services might be required it was decided that a decision should not be given at the meeting but that members desirous of joining should give in their names to the Superintendent by 10 o’clock the following morning.


The following gave in their names:   A. Wood;  A. E. Tong;  W. Harris.  G. Dennett;  A. Aran and Frank Foster.



(Footnote: A. Wood, and Frank Foster are remembered on Dunkirk War Memorial and George Dennett on Boughton War Memorial. Frank Foster joined up in September 1914, when he would still have been 16 years  old and died in April 1917 aged 19 and serving in the Life Guards. George Dennett would have been only 15 years old in 1914; he too died at the age of 19 )


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Two items from the Faversham and North East Kent News   18th March 1915


Sergeant-Major Charles Smith, of the Leinster Regiment (son of Mr and Mrs Edward Smith of Thunders Hill, Boughton), who as we reported a few weeks back, has gained the Distinguished Conduct Medal for gallantry at the Front, completed ten years’ military service last Friday.  Six out of the ten years were spent on foreign stations – nearly two years were spent in Mauritius, and just over four years in India.


He joined the Army with the determination to get on, and that painstaking application to his duties, have already carried him a good way.


His promotion to the rank of Sergeant-Major has been gained during the War, in which he has seen some of the worst of the fighting.  In October, while exposed to heavy fire, he went out and succeeded in bringing back safely to the trenches, one of the officers of his regiment who had been wounded, and it is assumed that it is for this gallant act that the Distinguished Conduct Medal was awarded him.


Sergeant-Major Smith is just turned 30 years of age and is unmarried.  He came home from France on eight days leave some few weeks ago


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Fifty-six old boys of the Boughton Wesleyan Day School are in the ranks of the Army or Navy.  At the annual school entertainments last week, the Roll of Honour was exhibited and reference made to it.


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This item appeared in the

Faversham and North East Kent News on 5 August 1916:


Two old boys of Hernhill Day School have won distinction, namely Sydney Alan Smith,  RAMC, who has been awarded the Distinguished Conduct Medal, and Albert E Creed, 10th Rifle Brigade, who has been mentioned by Sir Douglas Haig for gallantry in the field.



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This item appeared in the

Faversham and North East Kent News in 1917:


The Bingham Family of  Colonel's Lane, Boughton.


Among  a number of families recently mentioned in one of the popular weeklies as "doing their bit" in connection with the war,  was that of Mr and Mrs George Bingham of Colonel's Lane, Boughton.


Their two sons are both in the Army;  their four daughters are all working at the munitions works;  Mr Bingham is employed in agricultural work, which may be regarded a highly important war service, and Mrs Bingham also gives some of her time to farm work.


The two soldier sons, Francis and Frank, are both in the Buffs, have both been to the front, and have both been wounded.


Francis was wounded in June last year in the left leg, from which a piece of shrapnel weighing no less than four ounces was afterwards removed.  He is now in India attached to the Bedfordshire Regiment.


Frank was wounded in the right leg about a year ago at Loos.   The boys take their misfortunes very philosophically, one of them having remarked that they have a least a pair of sound legs between them!


It is interesting to note that the brothers have a military ancestry.  Their father, Mr George Bingham, was for 14 years in the 11th Hussars in which he reached the rank of Sergeant.  Nine years of his service was in India and he participated in the ceremonies there when Queen Victoria was proclaimed Empress.


Mrs Bingham's father, too, was a soldier and served in the Crimean War.  The family, therefore, has a record to be proud of.



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This item appeared in the Faversham and North East Kent News on 24 November 1917


ST JOHN AMBULANCE BRIGADE

BOUGHTON DIVISION'S WAR LOSSES.


Ambulance Divisions throughout the country have been greatly reduced in strength by enlistments, but probably none has contributed a greater number to the Forces in proportion to its size than has the Boughton Division.


In pre-war days the Boughton Division was one of the strongest and most efficient rural Divisions in Kent. But since the outbreak of war, member after member has left, until to-day there are only about a dozen remaining.


Alas! Quite a number of those who have gone will never return. Two have figured in the casualty lists within the last few weeks, and altogether five have given their lives at the Front. They are:  Pte Victor Rook, East Surrey Regt; Pte Alfred P. Branchett, The Buffs; Corpl Frank Foster, Life Guards; Pte F. S. Horn, R.A.M.C., and Pte R.H. Owen R.A.M.C.


Besides these, the Division has lost one other, namely William Turner, who was killed in the explosion at Faversham in April 1916.


The Chief Commissioner of the-Brigade in a letter to the Superintendent of the Division, Mr C.W. Smith, desiring that his condolences might be conveyed to the relatives of the two men recently killed, says: "The members of this Division have certainly distinguished themselves

and I shall be glad if you will please convey to it my appreciation of the gallant conduct of its

members and of the glory reflected upon it, and, through it, upon the Brigade." A similar letter

has been received from Dr Cotton,  Deputy Commission for the district.


Last Sunday week, the Division attended a memorial service held at Hernhill Church for four Hernhill men who have lately fallen, one of which was Pte Horn, a member of the Brigade. The service was conducted by the Vicar, the Revd.Alfred Clark, and the Dead March was played at the close.


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The Roll of Honour published in the Faversham and North East Kent News

on 10 August 1918 mentioned

Frederick Sidney Horn (Hernhill) RAMC,

and Ernest D Manuel (Hernhill), Staffordshire Regiment:


It also mentions two recipients of medals - Private Horace Packman - Military Medal (Hernhill) and Private Ted Percival, MM, Croix de Guerre, who also received the Distinguished Conduct Medal.


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Another who survived was Frederick Hall, brother to Ernest Hall, who lived first at Upper Harbledown, then becoming a woodsman after the war. Ernest died at Valenciennes, but Frederick survived.


His daughter Rita Philpott has kindly provided the photographs of both brothers, and you can read about him here on another page:


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The following appeared in the

Faversham and North East Kent News on 4 January 1919:


WAR HONOURS


BOUGHTON SCHOOLMASTER WINS THE  M.C.


2nd  Lieutenant D.A. Best, who was assistant master at the Wesleyan Day School, Boughton, before he joined the Army, has been awarded the Military Cross. He was wounded last October and from hospital in London has recently gone to a convalescent hospital at Blackpool. The intimation of the award reached him on Christmas Day.

He is looking forward to being able to resume his scholastic work shortly.


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Another recipient of a medal for bravery - the Military Medal - was William Rollings, of the The George Hotel. He had enlisted in the Life Guards in November 1914 ,but was discharged within a week as “Unfitted for the Duties of Household Cavalry”. Nevertheless, he  later joined the Royal Garrison Artillery, as shown by this excerpt from the Faversham and North East Kent News on 11 January 1919:



GUNNER W.G. ROLLINGS M.M.


Gunner WG Rollings, R.G.A., only son of Mr G Rollings of the George Hotel Boughton, has been awarded the Military Medal for bravery and devotion to duty on the night of October 22nd last at Le Cateau, France, during heavy bombardment and machine gun fire. Gunner Rollings joined the Kent Heavy Artillery at Faversham in July 1915, and is at present at his home in Boughton on leave. He has only just recovered from a serious illness which attacked him immediately after the eventful night in October, and will shortly return to duty.

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