LEATHERHEAD WAR MEMORIALS - WWI
Private Harold Hawkins
49th Bn Machine Gun Corps (Infantry)
Taken, Not Given, Liam Sumption, L&DLHS
Pte
Harold Hawkins
49th Machine Gun Corps
Saulzoir
Oct 15 1918 [sic]
The death of Harold Hawkins was announced in the Parish magazine, in the
issue of December 1918. The report stated that he had actually been killed
in action on 13 October 1918 and that he had previously served in the
2nd/4th Bn. Queens. (1)
This unit had previously served at Gallipoli and in Egypt, and arrived in
France in June 1918. At what date Harold Hawkins transferred from the
Queens to the Machine Gun Corps is not known. It was not a reorganisation
of his unit to a machine gun outfit, as took place in some cases.
The unit designation on the War Memorial suggests that it was actually the
49th Bn Machine Gun Corps, which was the machine gun Battalion of the 49th
Infantry Division. The War Diary of the 49th Bn. Machine Gun Corps
contains the following entries: –
13 Oct 1918: “an attack was launched by 147 and 148 Infantry Brigades.
Support given by 'A', 'B' and 'D' Coys. Enemy holding SHUZZUIR (SAULZOIR?)
and Haspres very strongly. Not much headway". And then there is a very
unusual entry in a 1914-18 British War Diary – “enemy tanks in action".
Casualties for the 13th of October (date of Harold Hawkins death given in
Parish magazine) were:
Killed: Officers 1 - ORs 20
Wounded: Officers nil - ORs 28
Missing: Officers nil - ORs 1
Total: Officers 1 - ORs 49
A total of 50 casualties.
On the 14th October, the Diary states “considerable shelling forward area
on the right, and 1 OR is stated to have been killed.
On the 15th October, it states " 'A' and 'C' Coys in line. 'D' in support.
'B' in reserve."
It reports H.E. and Gas shelling during the night and that 16 machine guns
were in the line.
Notes on sources
1. Parish magazine of St Mary and St Nicholas, Leatherhead, issue of
December 1918.
2. File WO95–2787, War Diary of 49 Bn. Machine Gun Corps - Public Record
Office, Kew, Richmond.
Further research
Private
HAWKINS, HAROLD
Service Number 24199
Died 14/10/1918
49th Bn. Machine Gun Corps (Infantry)
Commemorated at VIS-EN-ARTOIS
MEMORIAL
Location: Pas de Calais, France
Cemetery/memorial reference: Panel 10.
He enlisted at Guildford in the Queen's (Royal West
Surrey) Regiment with service number G/6042, later transferring to the
Machine Gun Corps with service number 24199.
Dorking and Leatherhead Advertiser
Saturday 23 November 1918
THE ROLL OF HONOUR.
During the past week notifications have come hand further Leatherhead men
who have made the great sacrifice in the War, which has happily now come
to an end with a glorious victory for the cause in which they had laid
down their lives.
PTE. HAROLD HAWKINS. Pte Harold Hawkins, of the Machine Gun Section of the
West Surreys, son of Mr. and Mrs. Hawkins, Box Cottages, Kingston-road,
Leatherhead, died France on Oct. 14th.
Dorking and Leatherhead Advertiser
Saturday 28 December
1918 ROLL OF HONOUR.
THE YEAR’S RECORD OF THE BRAVE FALLEN.
NOVEMBER
HAWKINS, PTE. HAROLD, Queen's R.W.S. Regt., son of Mr. and Mrs. Hawkins,
Box Cottages, Kingston-road, Leatherhead.
Harold has no known grave and is
commemorated on Panel 10 of the Vis-en-Artois Memorial.
VIS-EN-ARTOIS MEMORIAL
This Memorial bears the names of over 9,000 men who fell in the period
from 8 August 1918 to the date of the Armistice in the Advance to Victory
in Picardy and Artois, between the Somme and Loos, and who have no
known grave. They belonged to the forces of Great Britain and
Ireland and South Africa; the Canadian, Australian and New Zealand forces
being commemorated on other memorials to the missing.
The Memorial consists of a screen
wall in three parts. The middle part of the screen wall is concave and
carries stone panels on which names are carved. It is 26 feet high flanked
by pylons 70 feet high. The Stone of Remembrance stands exactly between
the pylons and behind it, in the middle of the screen, is a group in
relief representing St George and the Dragon. The flanking parts of the
screen wall are also curved and carry stone panels carved with names. Each
of them forms the back of a roofed colonnade; and at the far end of each
is a small building.
The memorial was designed by J.R.
Truelove, with sculpture by Ernest Gillick. It was unveiled by the Rt.
Hon. Thomas Shaw on 4 August
1930
His Life
Harold was born on 6 December 1887 in Cove, Hampshire and baptised on 1
January 1888 at St Peter's Church, Farnborough, Hampshire.
His father was Samuel Charles Hawkins, baptised 24 October in Hawley,
Hampshire. He was a son of Samuel Hawkins (1827-1881) of Cove, Hampshire,
a Grocer, and Susanna Fortescue b 1828 from Hawley, whose father Richard
was also a Grocer.
His mother was Martha Stilwell born 1856 at Betchworth, Surrey. She was a
daughter of James Stilwell (1825-1891), an Agricultural Labourer, and
Martha Stilwell (1831-1904).
Samuel and Martha were married on 24 May 1874 at St Mary's Newington,
London. The address for both was 56, St Paul's Road, Southwark.
Harold's siblings were Edith b 1873, Frederick Charles b 1875, Ernest
(born and died 1876), Blanche b 1877, Rose b 1879, Arthur b 1881, William
b 1884, Isabel b 1886, Ethel Marion b 1889, Elsie b 1892, Horace b 1893,
Cecil James b 1894, Fanny b 1897, Leonard b 1898.
In Harold's lifetime the Hawkins lived at:
1888 Cove, Hampshire
1891 Leatherhead Common
1901 & 1911 3 Box Cottages, Kingston Road, Leatherhead
Harold's marriage to Grace Lily Parsons was registered in Q3 1915 at
Epsom, Surrey.
Grace was born in Headley, Surrey, on 21 April 1890 and baptised at St
Mary the Virgin, Headley on 1 June 1890. She was a daughter of John
Parsons from Bletchingley, Surrey, who was a Domestic Gardener, and Emily
Charlotte Parsons from Headley, Surrey. Her parents were both living in
Headley at the time of their marriage. They lived into old age at Lyall's
Cottages, Headley.
Grace's brother Private
John Parsons, 7 Bn East Surrey Regiment died aged 19 on 14
October 1915 in the Battle of Loos. Harold would have known him and of his
death which occurred not that long before he married Grace.
Grace must have found the 14th October very difficult for on that date
three years apart her brother and husband were killed.
In the 1911 Census Grace was working as a Housemaid at Heath
Cottage, Headley for Edmund Beale Sargant, a retired Education Civil
Servant who had worked for the UK and South African Governments, and his
wife Marie.
So far it has not been established where Grace lived after their marriage,
whether they had any children, where she as a widow lived after WW1,
whether she remarried and when she died.
After WW1
According to the Electoral Registers Harold's parents remained at 3 Box
Cottages, Kingston Road, Leatherhead until 1922.
From 1923 they were at 55 Kingston Road, Leatherhead which may have been a
renumbering which was going on at that time.
For those interested in the history of Leatherhead the opportunity is
taken here to add a little about the origins of the Hawkins business.
Ancestry.com notes that when Harold's brother Leonard died in the Royal
West Sussex Hospital, Chichester, in March 1959, an obituary (which has so
far not been traced) provided some information:
Their father Samuel died on 16 December
1931. Samuel had founded the monumental and general masonry business
which under his son Leonard became the well known
L
Hawkins & Sons, Funeral Directors.
Surrey Advertiser
Thursday 24 December 1931
FUNERAL AT LEATHERHEAD CHURCHYARD
The funeral of Mr. Samuel Charles Hawkins, of 55, Kingston-road,
Leatherhead, whose death was reported in our last issue [this has yet to
be found], took place at Leatherhead Churchyard on Saturday, the Vicar
(the Rev. G. H. B. Coleridge) officiating.
Aged 81, Mr. Hawkins came to Leatherhead
in 1871, and was a monumental and general mason. He retired 27 years
ago. Mr. Hawkins was a pioneer of the All Saints Relief Committee which
was formed about 30 years ago, and was a member of the Hearts of Oak
Benefit Society for 56 years. He was also connected with other local
organisations. The mourners at the interment were Mr. A. Hawkins, Mr. W.
Hawkins. Mr. L. Hawkins, Mr. and Mrs. C. Hawkins (sons and
daughter-in-law), Mrs. E. Bullivant, Mr. and Mrs. C. Walker, Mr. and
Mrs. W. Budden, Miss E. Hawkins and Mrs. F. Phillips (sons-in-law and
daughter).
According to Ancestry.com:
Samuel worked as a stonemason on:
Paddington Station; St Johns School, Leatherhead; Letherhead Institute
and St Martin's Church, Dorking.
When he came to Leatherhead in 1871 he
lodged in the household of David Mann (Labourer) and family, Humphrey
Cottages, Church Road. Also lodging was fellow mason Walter Champ from
Faversham, Kent.
The Hawkins business was started in 1900
and in the 1901 Census Samuel, who was living at 3 Box Cottages,
Kingston Road, Leatherhead, ran his stonemasonry business from there. He
had been making memorials for Granthams of Leatherhead before setting up
Hawkins & Son.
Leonard (Len), who was born in
1898, served in WW1. He was at the Battle of Cambrai in 1917, was
wounded in the shoulder and taken prisoner, spending the rest of the war
in a POW camp in Germany.
In 1922, a stonemason, he was living in
the family home at 3 Box Cottages, Kingston Road when he married Emma
Elsie Malt (1898-1990), a daughter of Arthur Malt, Bootmaker. She was a
Domestic Servant living at Dorincourt, Oaklawn Road, Leatherhead.
Their first son, Robert Richard (Dick)
Hawkins was born in 1924. Bernard (Bernie) Hawkins was born in
1928 and in that year Leonard was now living at 57 Kingston Road,
previously no. 2 Box Cottages, Kingston Road.
Samuel, his father, died in 1931. The
following year when Leonard's youngest son Anthony Leonard (Tony)
was born, he had moved to 2 Highlands Road, Leatherhead and L Hawkins
& Sons was established there, the other side of Worple Road from
Leatherhead Parish Churchyard.
Harold's mother Martha died on 10 March 1934 and is buried in Leatherhead
Parish Churchyard.
Dick Hawkins died in 2016, Bernie in 1996 and Tony in 2010.
A plaque placed in the South Transept of Leatherhead Parish Church
following its re-ordering and refurbishment during 2019-2020 remembers the
service to the parish of the Hawkins family:
As well as being named on the
Leatherhead War Memorial Harold also is named on the Parish Church and
Village Hall war memorials at Headley, Surrey. The Headley
connection could be that his widow Grace spent her life there up to her
marriage, or did they have a home in the village?
Harold Hawkins is remembered on these memorials
Leatherhead Town Memorial
Leatherhead RBL Roll of
Honour, Leatherhead Parish Church
Ladies War Shrine, Leatherhead Parish
Church
Church Lads Brigade Memorial
Tryptich, All Saints Leatherhead
Surrey
in the Great War
Headley
Village Hall Memorial
Headley,
St Mary's Church
the website editor would like to add
further information on this casualty
e.g. a photo of him, and of any recollections within his family
last updated 12 Sep 20
