Tags
Arthur Howard, British War Medal, Bushbury, Cecil Howard, Durham University, France, Gorsebrook House, Henry Howard, Kenneth Howard, Kent, MIddlessex Regiment, Sherwood Foresters, Stafford Road, Suffolk, Tettenhall, Tettenhall Road, Victory Medal, Wales, Wolverhampton Grammar School
This post has been contributed by Jim Barrow.
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Kenneth Salwey Howard and his twin sister Kathleen Philippa were born on 14 December 1879 at Gorsebrook House, off the Stafford Road, Bushbury, Wolverhampton (now the site of Wolverhampton University’s Science and Business Park). They were the youngest children of coal, brick and tile merchant Edward Matthew Howard and Laura Harriet Howard (nee Salwey) who was born in Ash, Kent, in 1841. Edward was the son of a vicar and Laura also came from a clerical family.
Kenneth and Kathleen were baptised on 14 January 1880 at Tettenhall. Their eldest brother, Arthur E. Howard, was recorded as becoming an articled clerk and being born in Nolton, Bridge End, Glamorganshire, Wales, on 2 February, 1874, but their other brother, Cecil William Howard, is recorded as being born on 4 July 1875 in Tettenhall (and/or Newbridge) and sister, Evelyn M. Howard, were recorded as being born at Newbridge or Tettenhall. Brother Henry Bernard Howard was born in 1877 in Wolverhampton. Another sister, Clara M., was recorded as being born at Bushbury in 1883.
In 1891 Kenneth was shown on the census as boarding at a private school at 39 Tettenhall Road, where the head was Eliza Reach, originally from Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk. The rest of the family were shown at Gorsebrook House, Bushbury.
Kenneth attended Wolverhampton Grammar School from 1891-1892 but he does not appear on the War Memorial there. However, a plaque was placed on a wall near the wooden panelled memorial recording his name, alongside those of the four masters who died during the War, after other First World War research revealed his connection with the school .
In 1901 he was at the House of the Society of the Sacred Mission, Mildenhall, Suffolk, where he is described as a student. Alfred Kelly, the head of the household, was the younger brother of society founder Herbert Kelly. The Society moved to Kelham, Nottinghamshire, two years later. Kenneth’s two grandfathers were both clergymen, so may have influence him being with the mission.
In 1907, at the age of 27, Kenneth was at Durham University, where he was a Non-Collegiate student and a member of St Cuthbert’s Society. He played cricket and rowed in the university’s Grey Cup Competition. He spoke in Union debates, and in his entry on the University roll of honour mentions a report in the Durham University Journal (vol XV111 no.11) in which he proposed that “The secular system is the only solution of the present education problem”. This was defeated by 29 votes to 5. His speeches were described as “clever but never really grasped the subject” and containing “some more false qualities and epigrams.” Despite this, he kept debating and held different offices, passing his first year Arts examinations in arithmetic and logic in summer 1908. There is no attendance record for the following Michaelmas term but he did attend Epiphany, Easter and Michaelmas terms in 1909, studying arithmetic and political economy.
There is no record of him completing his BA. By 1911 the census shows him as being an Assistant Master at the Royal School. In August 1914 he was a private in ‘A’ Company of the 79th Public Schools Battalion 16th Middlesex Regiment, who applied for a commission. He attested on 5 September 1914 and continued with the Public Schools Battalion until he was commissioned into the 4th (Extra Reserve) Battalion of the Sherwood Foresters (Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire Regiment) on 17 May 1915.
He was gazetted a Second Lieutenant in 1916 and a Lieutenant in July 1917, shortly afterwards becoming a temporary Captain “without pay and allowances” while employed as Brigade Physical Training Officer and bayonet training supervising officer and remained seconded. On 3 September 1918 he joined the 1st Battalion of the Sherwood Foresters in the Oppy sector, near Arras, France. His Battalion War Diary (WO 95/1721/4) says that, while serving with ‘D’ Company, he was mortally wounded by a sniper during action on the Rouveroy-Fresnes line near Oppy during the Second Battle of Arras: “In a fierce fight the counterattack was repulsed but Captain Kenneth Salway Howard was killed.”
His medal card shows that he was awarded the silver British War Medal 1914-1920 and the bronze Victory Medal 1914-1919. He is buried in Roclincourt Military Cemetery.
Kenneth’s brother, Henry, enlisted on the 19th July 1915 and survived with the Army Service Corps (Private Service number SS/13123) and the Labour Corps (Private Service Number 30229) leaving on the 7th March 1918 and being awarded the Victory Medal, British War Medal and the 1914 Star.
His eldest brother, Arthur Edward, served with the Canadian forces and Cecil was ordained, served in the Soloman Islands and then as a parish priest in New Zealand during the war.
The eldest son of Montague and Isobel Mandeville, of Mallow, County Cork, Pierce was born in Waterford, Ireland in 1884.
The son of Frederick Steane and Susan Baker, Tom was born in Oxford in 1882. In 1901 he was living with his widowed mother at 14 Holywell Street, Oxford, along with his brothers Herbert, Arthur and Frank, and sisters Mary, Kate and Lucy. He was an assistant school teacher. In 1910, he became an assistant school master at Wolverhampton Grammar School, and he was living at the School House in Compton Road in 1911. In 1912, he left the Grammar School to take up a modern language position at Hymer’s College in Hull. Whilst at the Grammar school he obtained a commission in the school Officer Training Corps, which he continued at Hull.
Norman joined the D Squadron of the Staffordshire Yeomanry as a Trooper (number 2638). He became an orderly to Viscount Lewisham, before going to Egypt with his regiment on 10 November 1915. Unfortunately, he succumbed to heart apoplexy and died on 4 June 1916 in Esbet-el-Kargat, Fayum. He appeared in the Midland Counties Express on 23 December 1916. He is buried at 
Born in Wolverhampton on 10 March 1896, Walter was the son of William Henry and Mary Louisa Court. In 1901, he was living at Glenthorne, Finchfield, with his parents, sister Hilda M., and brothers Harold P. and Reginald F. From 1904 until 1908 he attended Wolverhampton Grammar School, before moving to Denstone College in Stafford, where he was a boarder in 1911. He served with the Officer Training Corps there for three years.
Douglas was born on 8 February 1893 in Wolverhampton, the son of James Auriol and Margaret W. B. Armitage. In 1901, they were living at 28 Waterloo Road, Wolverhampton, with Douglas’s siblings James A. R., Laurie S., and Christine N. Douglas attended the Reverend Arthur Johnson’s school at Cranmore House, before moving to Wolverhampton Grammar School in January 1902. In September 1904 he went to Temple Grove, Isleworth, and later he attended Oundle in Northamptonshire with a scholarship, where he was a boarder in 1911.
Ronald Herbert Hoole was born in Wolverley, Worcestershire, in 1891. Leonard Alexander Hoole was born in 1893. These were the sons of Alexander and Lizzie Hoole, and they were living with their widowed mother in Albrighton, Shropshire, in 1901, and in Reigate, Surrey, in 1911. Both attended Wolverhampton Grammar School, Ronald from January 1907 until July 1908. Whilst there, he played football and cricket. He later worked for the Inland Revenue.
Leonard chose a military career and was undergoing his training when war broke out. He joined the Public Schools’ Battalion before being attached to the Royal Fusiliers as a Lance Corporal (service number PS/5043). He was killed in action on 20 July 1916. On the day of the battle he was detailed as a stretcher-bearer, a duty which he performed without any thought of the risk to himself. He was killed “while in the act of administering succour to one of his wounded comrades.”
Wolverhampton's War 