East Chaldon War Memorial Remembered
This is one of several booklets I have written on War Memorials and local war graves.
All this started whilst I was researching the death of my uncle, Cecil Amphlett, who was killed in action in Burma in 1943 and was officially listed as having no known grave. However, in 1992 a photograph of his grave in Burma taken in 1943 by one of his colleagues was given to me.
At that time I thought we only look at War Memorials, around Remembrance Day in November. Reading the names inscribed on them without really knowing who they were, or how they died. I often find that relatives know little about what happened 60 or more years ago and are grateful that someone has taken the time to find out and let them know.
I hope that the following notes will serve as a starting point for anyone who wishes to research a relative’s death in more detail. It is impossible to do any military research without the name of the unit served with and, in many cases, the service number.
I have not been able to go into much detail with the names from the First World War as many records were damaged during the Second World War when the Record Office was hit by enemy bombs and those records that did survive were damaged by fire and water.
My starting point for research is The Commonwealth War Graves Commission Record Search, where I find name, rank and number. I then cross-reference those with details from census returns where available. Losses in the navy and air force are much easier to find from records since each service keeps records of ships or aircraft lost, which can obviously result in many lives being lost at the same time.
With the army, this is not as easy, because their records usually cover what a Regiment did as a whole and not just that of a Company or Platoon. For example, an entry in the Regimental War Diary written at the time or even several days later, would record that “the objective was taken with the loss of two officers and eight other ranks.” In the past, I have been fortunate to talk to soldiers who were in action with those who died and hear first hand what happened but sadly that option decreases with each passing year.
The following are the details relating to East Chaldon War Memorial.
I hope that you will take a few minutes to read this and remember all those who were killed fighting for our country.
Copies of this document are available from;
Richard Amphlett
Springfield
Chalk Pit Lane
Wool.
BH20 6DW Tel. 01929 460021
Five of those men listed on this Church’s memorial served with 5th Dorsetshire Regiment, and I have listed these together as they were killed in the same area.
Thomas John Burden, aged 19 years was the son of Henry and Elizabeth Burden. By the time Thomas died Elizabeth was already a widow.
10879 Private Burden of ‘D’ Company was killed on 21 August 1915.
Alfred Joseph Legg was the son of James and Mary Legg. He was killed on 18 August 1915.
His service number and rank was 10206 Private.
Sadly you will see that James and Mary were to loose another son, George.
C.Lovell Apart from knowing that he served with 5th Dorsetshire Regiment, I have no other details about him and have been unable to trace these through the Commonwealth War Graves Commission list or the 1901 Census.
Joseph William Wallis aged 19 years was the son of Frank and Esther Wallis.
10207 Private Wallis was killed on 10 September 1915 and also served with ‘D’ Company.
You can see that he and Alfred Legg joined the army at the same time by their service numbers, 10206 and 10207.
Frederick John Warren. 11099 Private Warren served with 5th Dorsetshire Regiment and died on 7 August 1915.
Frederick was the 24 year old son of John and Susan Warren.
During 1915, the 5th Battalion of the Dorsetshire Regiment was involved with other Commonwealth Forces in the 8 month campaign against Turkish forces in Gallipoli.
By the end of August, stiff Turkish resistance led to a stalemate and no other serious action took place.
By December 1915 and January 1916 all Commonwealth forces had been evacuated.
The names of those killed are remembered on the Helles Memorial, which can be seen by ships passing through the Dardanelles. It lists over 21,000 names, many from the 5th Dorsets.
F. House 1st Dorsetshire Regiment. 12877 Private House died on 16 June 1916 and is buried in the Authuile Cemetery near Albert in France. I have no family details.
George James Legg aged 31 years was the son of James and Mary Legg of The Post Office, East Chaldon.
213698 Petty Officer Legg was serving on board HMS Black Prince, an armoured cruiser, during the Battle of Jutland. Having turned south to look for the battle she sailed right into the middle of the German High Seas Fleet.
HMS Black Prince was picked up by search lights and fired on at short range by the German battleships. After only two minutes she was on fire from end to end and after burning for a few minutes she exploded.
37 officers, 815 men and 25 civilians were lost, among them, George Legg. The date was the 31 May 1916.
All are remembered on the Portsmouth Naval Memorial on Southsea front.
As mentioned above George was the brother of Alfred.
Looking at the 1901 census, George would have been 16 years old and to have reached the rank of Petty Officer by 1916 probably joined the navy after leaving school.
Frederick John Pitman aged 21 years, was the son of Isaac and Elizabeth Pitman of 10 East Chaldon.
At the time of his death, on 20 August 1917, Frederick was K/20826 Stoker 1st Class serving on HM Submarine E-47, which was based in Harwich with the 9th Flotilla.
While on patrol off the German/Dutch coast she was lost with all hands six miles off Texel.
All are remembered on the Plymouth Naval Memorial.
The wreck was found in 2002 and identified by the deck gun which was salvaged.
Francis Ernest Richards was the 31year old husband of Mabel Jane Richards of 12 Winfrith. and was also the son of Mrs Braidley, formally Richards, who was then living in Devonport.
199073 Leading Seaman Richards was serving on board HMS Monmouth, an armoured cruiser, which was built in 1904.
The Monmouth class was designed with speed in mind at a cost of size and guns. Instead of 9.2 inch guns, she had 6 inch, and her armoured plate was reduced from 4 inches to 6 inches.
By October 1914, HMS Monmouth was in the South Atlantic off Chile and on 1 November was involved in what became known as the Battle of Coronel.
Admiral von Spee had 5 modern cruisers, among them Scharnhorst and Gneisenau (not to be confused with ships of the same name during WW2).
HMS Monmouth was ambushed by the German squadron, her 6 inch guns out-classed by the 8.2 inch guns of the Germans and she was lost with all hands. They are remembered on the Plymouth Naval Memorial.
As a point of interest, Henry Cornish of Winfrith, was also lost in this action when his ship, HMS Good Hope, was lost with all 900 of her crew.
ChaldonHerringnews.co.uk
Chaldon Herring Village History.
Truthfully, history comprises all of time past.
Recorded history, however, only notes the momentous, not the normal; the ordinary.
It records the exceptional, whether by wealth, power or talent.
Chaldon Herring is an outstanding example of small ordinary rural settlement in southern England. It seems always to have been of and about, the land; typical of its day; mostly poor but supporting an indigenous population, which rises or falls somewhat as the rural economy fluctuates.
It must have been amongst the first places inhabited by prehistoric man after the end of the ice age. The earliest evidence of occupation lies in the barrows on Chaldon Down, dated at circa 5,500 BC. [there were mesolithic finds in buried soil beneath excavated barrows.]
In the bronze age -1800-800BC - our predecessors created the line of barrows known as the Five Mary’s, and interred skeletons and an urn in their ritual burials. They left celtic field patterns on the cliffs near Middle Bottom.
The Romans came, living in Lulworth and Wool and dropping sherds of pottery at Vicarage Bottom and near the boundary between West Chaldon and Holworth.
In the “Dark Ages” ie between the Romans and the Norman Conquest, the village was part of the demense of King Harold in the Saxon kingdom of Wessex.
From the Domesday Book [1086] onward there are continuos records of land ownership and local population. For almost three hundred years Bindon Abbey held title to much of the land; various Norman nobles tenanting the rest.
From the mid-seventeenth century the Weld family have owned the land, and until the nineteen twenties, most of the property in the village.
In the mid-fourteenth century the village of Chaldon Boys [West Chaldon] suffered a decline in its population - less to do with the Black Death - though it did lose two priests in six months to the pestilence - than to changing farming practices; it now has a deserted village in the fields next to the farmhouse. Similarly the remains of the original village of East Chaldon lie to the north of the stream on either side of the road, with the remains of an old chapel to the west. The parish of Chaldon Boys was united with East Chaldon in 1446.
Nothing very noteworthy seems to have occurred over the centuries; landlords came and went, or died and succeeded, population drifted up and down; a school was built [finally] in 1847 and closed in 1932. But at the turn of the century, in 1904, the writer, Theodore Powys, settled in the village, later marrying a local woman, raising a family, and over the next twenty years bringing a tide of creative people to visit, some to live, in the village.
So the village is now noted for its association with the Powys family, Sylvia Townsend Warner and Valentine Ackland, Elizabeth and Hope Muntz, Andre Bonnamy, Stephen Tomalin, David Garnett and even, peripherally, T E Lawrence and Augustus John.
After the second world war the changes in the village reflect those of English rural society as a whole,. Increased mechanisation leading to fewer farm workers, drift to local towns for employment, gradual influx of newcomers entering village life, until now there are only three families in the parish whose roots go back several generations in this place.
And yet the place seems very durable; wholly recognisable to a ghost from 500 years ago, though perhaps not to our mesolithic forebears.