Pte Albert Edward Grimmer 1st Bn Norfolk Regiment
Killed in France Sunday June 4th 1916 AGE: 20
Albert was the son of Walter & Georgina Grimmer of Elm Cottage, Little Ormesby, and Great Ormesby. We have not yet discovered his relationship with Mathern!
He has no known grave and his name is on the Arras Memorial in Faubourg D’Amiens Cemetery in the town of Arras in France.
Walter Gill Private 7369 Machine Gun Corps
Died on Friday 1st November 1918
Walter was a member of a well known local family – his father came from Llanfair Discoed to work for Harry Gales at The Innage farm. His brother’s son currently lives in Mathern and was named Walter after him.
Army records show him as born in Newport, which may well mean Llanfair, and enlisting in Chepstow, originally Private 26091 in the South Wales Borderers. The Machine Gun Corps was formed in 1916 to provide additional machine gunners in support of the infantry and his low service number may indicate that he transferred to it at about that time. He was in the 18th Battalion, serving in France towards the end of the War and was killed at the battle of the Selle during the final advance in Picardy.
Walter is buried in St Sever Cemetery Extension, Rouen, only 2 miles from the famous cathedral, grave reference S.II.BB.4. He was entitled to war and victory medals.
The letter which accompanied Walter’s medals
Edgar Daniel Gibson Pte 44579 Welsh Regiment
Died on Friday 20th September 1918 AGE: 27
Daniel was the son of Mr. & Mrs. R Gibson of Rose Cottage, Pwllmeyric, a member of a well-known local family. Army records show that he enlisted in Pontypridd and give his address as Chepstow. He was a member of the 8th Battalion of the Welsh Regiment, a pioneer unit, which towards the end of the War was serving in Mesopotamia.
The campaign against Turkey made slow progress through Mesopotamia (now Iraq). Baghdad was captured in March 1917 and became a center of Allied operations with two hospitals, three casualty clearing stations and a large cemetery which continued to expand for the next 50 years. Daniel’s battalion was in action a few days before he died. However we do not know if he died from injuries suffered in that action or from some other cause – a common killer of soldiers in this area was disease, in particular dysentery.
He was buried in the Baghdad (North Gate) War Cemetery, grave reference IV.G.6. His family would have received his War and Victory medals. The death notice shown below appeared in the Chepstow Weekly Advertiser of Saturday October 5th 1918.
Daniel has relatives still living in Pwllmeyric and also a nephew Mr. Bruce Gibson, now living in Fareham, Hants, who has provided us with an interesting letter: following in his uncle’s footsteps he served in Mesopotamia after the Second World War.
Finding himself in the War Cemetery at Basra
“I decided to try and locate Daniel’s grave. I failed to do so. However on visiting the small chapel belonging to the cemetery later I found his name recorded upon a ROLL OF HONOUR therein which was of great satisfaction to me.”
Reginald Davis, Private 14308 South Wales Borders. Killed in action Sunday 30th July 1916. AGE: 20
Reginald was born in Mathern, the son of Robert Davis. Army records show that he enlisted in Newport and lived in Chepstow (but this may mean he still lived in Mathern). He was in the 5th Battalion of the South Wales Borderers, which was being used as a “pioneer” battalion i.e. to follow up the front line troops and consolidate the occupation of ground gained. They would dig trenches, lay telephone cables, and do general laboring, but never far from the front line.
Reginald first served in France on 17 July 1915. The first Battle of the Somme began as a British offensive on 24th June 1916 but very little progress had been made by the end of July. On the day he was killed, a Sunday, an enemy trench in the Intermediate Line at High Wood had just been captured and he was engaged in consolidation work, or possibly mopping up the enemy. During all this time Reginald and his comrades were subjected to constant and accurate shellfire and his body was never identified.
General Haig abandoned the offensive on 18th November. Less than five miles of land had been gained, along a 30 mile front, at the cost of more than a million men killed and injured. Reginald’s name is on Face 4A of the Thiepval Memorial as one of the 73,412 British troops who died in the area during 1916. He would have been awarded the 1915 Trio.
Gareth Jones Jan 2000
The Thiepval Memorial is on the site of the Chateau which was destroyed in the fighting
He was born in Mathern, the son of John Maynard & Elizabeth Closs, who we think lived near the top of Pwllmeyric hill, John being at one time a Churchwarden at Mathern. He was a brother of the late Bessie Bryant, whose son George still lives in Mathern.
Samuel enlisted at Newport giving his address as Mathern. The Chepstow Weekly advertiser gave his current address as Mounton House, so it may be that he was ‘living in’ there as a member of staff. He joined the Welsh Regiment and was at first in D Company, with the service number 11328. On 1st August 1915 was serving on Gallipoli but later he was transferred to D Company of the 6th Battalion East Lancashire Regiment, fighting in Mesopotamia (now Iraq) and “presumed dead” on 9th April. This was at the start of a long campaign to liberate Kut Al Imara near the site of ancient Babylon – it took 12 months!
The predicament of Sam and his comrades has come to light via the Regimental Diary: they laid out all night in readiness for the charge on Sannaiyat – the order came at 4.20am. When they were still 250 yards from the enemy’s trenches the sky was lit up by flares and immediately they were cut down by shell, machine gun and rifle fire.
Sam has no known grave and is listed on the Basra memorial, 250 miles away from where he was killed. He is entitled to the 1915 Star Trio.
Basra is the southernmost city of Iraq, situated near the Persian Gulf. The Memorial consists of a roofed colonnade of white Indian stone, 80 meters long, with an obelisk 16 meters high as the central feature. The names are engraved on slate panels fixed to the wall behind the columns: there are more than 40,000names of Britons, Indians and West Africans who died in the Mesopotamia campaign between autumn 1914 and summer 1921. Robert’s name is on panel 19.
The memorial was originally sited within the Basra War Cemetery but following a presidential decree from Saddam Hussein it was rebuilt in 1997 20 miles to the west. The new site, where the memorial has been perfectly reconstructed, is the middle of what was a major battleground during the 1983 Gulf War and only about 20 miles from the Kuwait border.
Robert was the son of Thomas & Elisa Arnold of Mathern. With 12 brothers and sisters he was brought up at Rose Cottage which still stands at the top of Arnolds Lane (The Miller’s Arms is at the bottom). Thomas worked at the Severn Tunnel pumping Station, Sudbrook and the family supplemented his income by using the land around Rose Cottage as a small market garden.
Most likely Robert had joined the Marines as a regular, some time before the War started. He wasn’t primarily a sailor – members of the Royal Marine Light Infantry were often posted to ships to operate the various guns on board. At the outbreak of the War he was serving on the Cressy class cruiser HMS Aboukir. His brother Fred had chosen a similar career and was serving on HMS Speedwell at the time (Fred’s daughter Sylvia still lives in Mathern today).
On the fateful morning the Aboukir together with two of her sister ships, the cruisers Hogue and Cressy, were patrolling the North Sea 20 miles north west of the Hook of Holland. For some reason they were not accompanied by their usual “screen” of destroyers. At 6.30am the Aboukir was struck by a torpedo from the German submarine U9 and sank within 25 minutes. Many men were left floundering in the water. HMS Hogue moved in amongst them and her crew were busy throwing everything overboard that would float when the Hogue itself was struck. The Cressy then moved in to help and not surprisingly met the same fate. The three great ships sank within an hour of each other 837 men survived and 1459 died, including Robert. Along with many others who have no known grave he is listed on the Chatham Naval Memorial in Kent panel No 7, Chatham being his home port.
From The Weekly Argus, Saturday, October 3rd, 1914, which gave the news that Robert was missing and also that his Brother Fred was serving in the Navy on H M S Speedwell at the same time
Extract of letter from his brother Fred showing the bitterness he felt at Robert’s death
Book of Remembrance
Second Edition 11.11.2001
Research at the time by Councillors John Florida and Margaret Cracknell
Service records consultant Gareth Jones
Edit and printing John Nettleship
Commissioned by Mathern Community Council
for the Millennium Year 2000
Second edition 11th November 2001
Edited by John Nettleship
ABOUT THIS BOOK
Those killed in the wars did not survive to tell their own story or to complete the contribution they would have made to the community. Hence this record has been started so that those of us here now are more aware of them and of what they lost for the benefit of those who remain.
It is in essence a Scrap Book. Pages are being corrected and updated as more information comes to light. Copies of photographs etc. are added as they are made available.
Military records have been studied by Gareth Jones of Caerwent, which gave us a good start. His material has been combined with that provided by Councillors John Florida and Margaret Cracknell who carried out research at the reference library at Newport Museum, Brecon Military Museum and Chepstow Museum. They also issued appeals for information from relatives, friends and others (see acknowledgements page at the back). The resources of Chepstow Museum have been combed for us by the Curator, Ann Rainsbury, and she has also helped with scrutiny of the text.
Reference copies are kept in the three Parish Churches of our Community. Short runs amounting to about 20 copies have been printed by computer. N.B. the computer ink is not waterproof! Further copies are available on compact disc with permission to print therefrom. The material here should not be copied without permission.
FOREWORD:
By Lieutenant-Colonel A. R. EVILL
There may be very few, who are alive today and who remember the two World Wars of the 20th Century, but there are many deeply interested in just how these two wars affected those then living in their local community.
I believe that this Book of Remembrance does much to illustrate those times, particularly the loss of relatives and friends. It is a tragedy of war that it often takes the best of us, such as my old friend and neighbour Ian Liddell V.C.
I was born at Brynderwen, the youngest of a family of five. I remember when in the early 1920s, aged 6, asking my father about the First World War and he said that after a very fierce battle, he doubted that there was a family in the local Newport area who was not mourning the loss of a relative or friend; it was the 2nd Battle of Ypres on the 8th of May 1915.
While it is true that in those days of the two World Wars, families were more static than nowadays, but there are many these days moving into an area, who will be interested in its history and so I am confident that this informative and fascinating Book of Remembrance will be much appreciated by both old family residents and also newcomers of an enquiring mind.
If you can offer any corrections, further information or material, please contact us:
Copyright rests with the owners of original photographs and materials
Robert Arnold Pte CH 16953 Royal Marine Light Infantry
Samuel Percy Closs – Private 18544 East Lancashire Regiment
Reginald Davis, Private 14308 South Wales Borders.
Edgar Daniel Gibson Pte 44579 Welsh Regiment
Walter Gill Private 7369 Machine Gun Corps
John Sydney Jones Pte 352638 Manchester Regiment
Christopher John Luckett Pte 33939 Welsh Regiment
Christopher Albert Edward Prickett Private 353637 Manchester Regiment
Thomas Henry Saunders Pte 5932106 1st Battalion Suffolk Regiment
Captain Claude Wilfred Stanton Monmouthshire Regiment
Arthur Malcolm Frederick Cook Sergeant 1067230 23 Squadron Fighter Command
Captain Ian Oswald Liddell VC – 5th Battalion Coldstream Guards
Ernest Edmond George Prickett Rifleman 2299 Monmouthshire Regiment
Daniel William Tyler Gunner 1133679 24th Field Regiment Royal Artillery
William Victor Watkins Gunner 1721607 183 (Mixed) Heavy Anti-Aircraft Regiment Royal Artillery
Pte Albert Edward Grimmer 1st Bn Norfolk Regiment
Wyndham Henry Huggett – 2nd Lt. South Wales Borders 4th Battalion
George Phillip Price, L/Cpl G69573 1st Bn Queen’s Royal – West Surrey Regiment
Further to the above consultation and our earlier response to the same we write with further comments on the proposed RLDP.
We again question the growth strategy being promoted in the RLDP. In May 2019 MCC declared a Climate Emergency for the County and identified a policy that would target the reduction of carbon emissions within the County. A large part of this policy focuses on renewable household energy efficiency, recycling and transport.
It must be questioned in the face of a Climate emergency how a high growth housing policy fits with the climate Emergency. New developments will mean increased infrastructure including road widening, by-passes and community facilities as the existing infrastructure in all of our Primary Settlements is at capacity or beyond at present.
The assumption within the plan seems to be that within existing Primary Settlements there is infrastructure capacity that can be tapped, this is far from reality. The cost and time implications of providing this infrastructure will go long beyond the period of the RLDP hence developments will not be sustainable.
We are aware that an Infrastructure Plan will be produced to complement and RLDP and that plan will identify infrastructure needs to allow the RLDP to work. It is inevitable that the cost of that infrastructure is going to be unachievable so the plan would not work. By example in Chepstow to relieve traffic congestion and improve the environment a by-pass will be required plus major upgrading of drainage systems. New doctors and dental facilities will be required. What budget is available for MCC to expend on infrastructure over the plan period? Discussions on how to resolve problems in the Chepstow area have been ongoing for years but there are no current plans in place to deliver anything tangible so we are coming from a standing start. Residential developments are however underway now under the existing LDP.
Mrs Jane Kelley
Clerk Mathern C C
Monmouthshire County Council (MCC) have set up a Consultation process for agreeing the strategy and direction of the Replacement Local Development Plan for the County running from 2018 to 2033. This is a very important document as it will set the framework within which key planning decisions will be made. Once the policy is agreed any planning application submitted will be assessed against compliance with the RLDP.
The consultation period runs from 5th July to 31st August 2021 and it is important that any person with a view makes that known to MCC through this process. Although we as a Community Council have made representation on your behalf, that is counted as a single response so it is important that individuals respond also.
Feedback to the consultation can be made using the following email address or on line as noted on the MCC website.
planningpolicy@monmouthshire.gov.uk
Should any resident wish to discuss any issues regarding this matter please do not hesitate to contact one of your Councillors
We also attach a copy of our responses to the earlier consultation relating to this plan dated January 2021 for your information.
Follow the links below for more reading :