Introduction
Walter Reynolds served in the 1st Battalion of the Somerset Light Infantry from 1907 to 1917. His battalion faced intense fighting in France and Flanders during the First World War, and he was eventually discharged as a result of his wounds. He later settled in Birmingham, where he worked as a fitter, married and raised three children.
Childhood
Walter was born on 30 March 1891 at Hardington Mandeville, the seventh of eight children of Arthur Reynolds and his wife Susanna Wildern (née Smith).[1] His father was an assistant overseer of the poor and an agent for Prudential Assurance. The family initially lived at Ivy Cottage, Coker Hill before later moving to the High Street and then to Bulshay.
In November 1905, Walter’s father died of splenic anaemia at the age of forty-nine.[2]
Military career
Two years after his father’s death, Walter enlisted in the Somerset Light Infantry on 5 October 1907, serving as a private with the 1st Battalion. His regimental number was 8384.[3]
In April 1911, he was stationed in the Colliery Office in Tylacelyn Road, Penygraig, part of a contingent assigned to maintain public order during the Cambrian Combine miners’ strike.
Once the strike ended in September 1911, the 1st Battalion moved to Bordon Camp in Hampshire before relocating to its permanent pre-war home at Colchester, Essex, in 1912.
When the First World War broke out, the 1st Battalion was dispatched to France. According to war medal index cards, Walter arrived in France on 21 August 1914.[4] The battalion soon became involved in the Retreat from Mons and the Battle of Le Cateau.
Walter was included in Hardington’s Roll of Honour in January 1915.[5] At this time, the battalion was holding the line in the waterlogged winter trenches of the Ploegsteert Wood sector near the Belgian border.
Walter was discharged from the army in April 1917 as a result of wounds.[6] The date and circumstances of his injuries have not been established, although his discharge suggests that his injuries were serious enough to render him permanently unfit for further military service. It is possible that he was wounded during the fighting on the Somme in 1916, but this cannot be confirmed at present.
He was awarded the Victory Medal, the British War Medal, and the 1914 Star, and the Silver War Badge.[7]
Marriage and later life
After leaving the army, Walter settled in the West Midlands. In 1918, he married Frances May Dayman in the Walsall area. Their first child, Douglas Henry Wildern, was born on 22 December 1918 when they lived at Cottage Lane, Chasetown, near Walsall. Their second child, Irene Barbara, was born on 12 August 1920, when they lived at 57 Beech Road, Erdington. By June 1921, the family was living with Frances’s parents at 17 Aldridge Road, Streetly. Walter had established himself in Birmingham’s engineering industry and was working as a fitter at the Wolseley Motor Works at Ward End. A third child, Donald Alister, was born in the Birmingham registration district on 19 January 1924.
By March 1930, when the eleven-year-old Douglas won a prize in a children’s newspaper competition, the family lived at 589 College Road, Perry Common, Erdington.[8] This house remained the family home for more than forty years. By September 1939, Walter was a jig and press tool fitter; Douglas had become a carpenter and joiner; Irene worked as an Assistant Librarian; and Donald was a technical school student.
Frances died on 3 July 1975, at the age of seventy-eight, leaving an estate valued at £1,104.[9] After her death, Walter moved to 25 Herbert Road, Aldridge. He died on 17 September 1978 at the age of eighty-seven, leaving an estate valued at £10,067.
Conclusion
Walter’s decision to enlist in 1907 took him away from Hardington while he was still a teenager. Over the following decade, he served through industrial unrest in South Wales and the early years of the First World War before wounds ended his military career. He went on to build a new life in the West Midlands, where he worked in engineering and remained for the next sixty years.
References
[1] Civil registration birth index; 1939 Register; family reconstitution.
[2] Death certificate of Arthur Reynolds.
[3] Silver War Badge Records, 1914-1920.
[4] British Army World War I Medal Rolls Index Cards, 1914-1920.
[5] Western Chronicle, 5 February 1915, p.6.
[6] Silver War Badge Records, 1914-1920
[7] British Army World War I Medal Rolls Index Cards, 1914-1920; World War I Service Medal and Award Rolls, 1914-1920; Silver War Badge Records, 1914-1920
[8] Birmingham Weekly Mercury, 9 March 1930, p.11.
[9] National probate calendar.