The First World War : Casualties

 

Driver Walter Jacob served with the 11th Field Company, Royal Engineers. As he died of pneumonia two days before Armistice Day, his name appears on the Salisbury War Memorial.

Picture by kind permission of the Jacob family

The casualty figures for the First World War are so huge that they are beyond comprehension; the scale and impact only being realised when viewed at a local level. For, during the conflict, Salisbury lost four hundred and fifty nine of its young men; train loads of sick and wounded also passing through the city on their way to the various military hospitals set up around it.

 In Salisbury Soldiers  compiled by Richard Broadhead, forty three of the casualties have links to addresses in the Milford Street Bridge area; this rising to fifty four if those in St. Martin’s Church Street, St. Ann’s Street and St. Edmund’s Church are included. Culver Street, Gigant Street, Trinity Street, Milford Street, Milford Hill and Rampart Road all had multiple casualties; some families like the Masseys, the Burbages, the Sainsburys and the Amors losing more than one son. L/Cpl George Green of Winchester Street was killed in Belgium just twenty days after war was declared while Driver Walter Jacob of Greencroft Street was the last Salisbury man known to have died before Armistice Day; succumbing to pneumonia on 9 November 1918. 

As the centenary of the start of the First World War is approaching, the children of those who served are becoming fewer in number. Therefore we would be grateful for any family memories of the event before they are lost forever.