The contents on this page remain on our website for informational purposes only.
Content on this page will not be reviewed or updated.
|
|
|
||
With today’s internet a wealth of official information is available regarding those who served.
In an age before local radio and television, families often allowed letters to be published in the local press from their loved ones on active service. However, for their descendants the letters reveal a more personal aspect, graphically describing the experience of the people and providing an insight into their personalities. |
B.S. 1914 Nov. 21st Corporal F. Burgess, of the Queen’s Royal West Surrey Regiment, has been seriously wounded in one of the engagements near Ypres. A bullet passed through his thigh and shrapnel caused wounds on the back of his head and fractured his left arm. He is now in North Staffordshire Infirmary, Hartshill, Stoke on Trent. He is a native of Buckingham, and his brother, Mr. Arthur J. Burgess, is manager of the Newport Pagnell branch of the Aylesbury Brewery Company. Corporal Burgess served for a few years in the Navy, and then joined the Queen’s Royal West Surrey Regiment, in which he served in Gibraltar, Malta, Africa and Bermuda. He was sent to the Front about six weeks ago, and in a letter to his friends at Buckingham makes an earnest appeal regarding ‘shirkers;’ W.E. 1915 May 7th In a letter received on Sunday from the Commanding Officer, L. Reynolds, Mr. and Mrs. Robert Hutt, of North End Square, Buckingham, learned that their son, Lance Corporal William Hutt, of the 1st Bucks Territorials, died a few minutes after being shot through the chest. Mending the barbed wire entanglements, he had been in front of the parapet of his trench with Lieutenant Green when he was hit, just as they were finishing. On Monday morning a letter was then received from Q.M.S.R. Read, in which he described Lance Corporal Hutt as having the promise to become a smart and capable N.C.O., adding; Aged 25, and single, about seven years ago William had left Buckingham for Wales, but on the outbreak of war he rejoined the Bucks Territorials, having previously been a member of the C (Buckingham) Company. His father was well known in the Bucks Battalion of Volunteers, which he joined in 1879, holding during the later years the position of cook. He formed one of the guard of honour at the funerals of the late Lord Beaconsfield and Queen Victoria, and also at the Diamond Jubilee of her late Majesty on Westminster Bridge. (Captain Reynolds would also become a casualty, when wounded in the head behind the ear, in which he was left stone deaf. Even after being hit he attended to the other wounded until he collapsed. His wound would be treated in hospital at Hampstead.)
|
|
ALSO AVAILABLE IN BOOK FORM AS ‘LETTERS FROM THE FIRST WORLD WAR’ FROM WWW. LULU.COM,
PRODUCED WITH THE INVALUABLE EXPERTISE OF ALAN KAY & ZENA DAN. |
|