War Memorial

The remains of my great-grandfather, Peter Degville, lie in Brompton Cemetery. He died on 10th April 1915 after being mortally wounded perhaps in the same action in which his comrade Thomas Degville was killed.

CWGC "Debt of Honour Register" Listing

In March 1915 the Second Battalion of the South Staffordshire Regiment were at the front in the area of Givenchy. The Defense of Givenchy in December 1914 seems to have flowed in to the First Action at Givenchy on 25 January 1915 and then the Second Action on the 15 and 16 June.

Trench Map Givenchy June 1916

Peter Degville was born in 1883 so he was about 32 years old at the time of his death. He endured a hard life and probably suffered a hard death. I doubt whether the same pressures that caused him to enlist exist today's society. Yet we still seem to be troubled by our notions of class, sex, nation and race. The connections that exist between people, particularly in Europe and the United States, make such categorisations absurd.

In the line around them would have been troops from other parts of the Commonwealth. The Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC) "Debt of Honour Register" is an online database of the 1.17 men and women of the Commonwealth forces and of the 67,000 Commonwealth civilians who died during the two world wars and the 23,000 cemeteries, memorials and other sites worldwide where they are commemorated and of the 67,000 Commonwealth civilians who died as a result of enemy action during the Second World War.

Serendipity In The Pages Of The London Gazette

The London Gazette is useful online resource for discovering all sorts of family information that is published in the public domain. I've found it invaluable when attempting to analyse the circumstances in which our ancestors lived.

Sometimes one discovers the unexpected. For example here is my grandmother, Gladys Elizabeth Degville, newly appointed as a telephonist in Birmingham (published 5 March 1929).

After the death of her parents my grandmother was brought up in a convent and had little contact with her extended family. Here The London Gazette is advertising her late father's estate so that it could be claimed by his kin. This process seems to have gone on for some time after the end of the First World War as this particular advert appeared on 4 May 1926.

When my grandmother fled the convent to live in the YWCA and avoided being resettled in Canada she would have thought £1.16 (and that is shillings not pence) a small fortune.

Gladys Elizabeth Kimberley nee Degville (1911-1991)
with my father John Kimberley