ww1 heroes

“Preserve, Conserve, Enhance”

Avening’s Roll of Honour

Forty two men from Avening died during the First World War or afterwards from their injuries. Their names can be seen on the Roll of Honour in the parish church and at the front of the Memorial Hall. The latter was built to commemorate their sacrifice. Fred Vening researched and wrote articles about all of the men except one for whom he could find no information: number 23, William Freeman. These life stories, which first appeared in Avening’s magazine The Villager, are published below. They are in chronological order of the men’s deaths, from the first to die in October 1914, Frederick Robert Pollock, to William George Tanner, who died from his injuries in 1921. I have made a few minor changes to the original articles, mainly where Fred mentions proposals to install the blue plaques, as the latter are now all in position. View the following pages to read the stories of all 42 heroes. The village history archive has much supporting material found by Fred during his research, such as Commonwealth War Graves Commission information, family trees, extracts from official war diaries and so on. If relatives of any of the war dead would like to see the additional material pertaining to their family member please contact me. Acknowledgements Many thanks to Fred Vening for permission to use his work, to Ann Brick, who helped with the research and supplied digital copies of the research material, to Gail Dawson, for additional material on Hubert Ind, to Jane Archer for back copies of The Villager and to Nicholas Winkfield for lending me the hard copies of Fred’s material. Jean Chatelain (email: ajeanchatelain@icloud.com)

Avening in the First World War

In Avening Parish Church, the Roll of Honour shows that the village lost 42 men in the First World War. Many of the family names can still be found among the current inhabitants of Avening. Military records list a total of 87 men serving in the forces during the first year of the war. This was from a total population of 823 in 1914. The hamlet of Nag’s Head alone sent 17 men from only 18 houses. Most of the men served in the Gloucestershire Regiment; some were in other regiments or the Royal Navy. One Baptist minister, the Reverend Edward Fowles, who had been working as a missionary in China, was enlisted as an officer in the Chinese Labour Battalions in France because of his knowledge of Chinese customs and language. Avening men fought in nearly all the theatres of the war, from Flanders to Mesopotamia. Those who died were killed in action or fatally wounded at Ypres, Loos, Cambrai, Arras, the Dardanelles and many other places. Some were decorated for their bravery, with at least three Military Medals and two Distinguished Conduct Medals being awarded to local men. Click on the WW1 Heroes link to read the stories of the 42 men who died in the conflict: