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Key dates over September 1916

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Lives lost on this day: 8

26th September 1916 - Village of Thiepval captured on the Somme. Later the site of the great Memorial to the Missing.

2nd Batt: Good news received from “Somme,” Combles was surrounded and Thiepval attacked pm. The tanks were used. Lt AWE Christie fell down a disused well while patrolling in No Mans Land but his body was recovered.

4th Batt: batt attended a lecture on Small Box Respirators at the Divisional Gas School and after all men had to enter the gas-chamber.

There was a Boxing Tournament in C Camp. One final was decided with Pte Mucklow, 4th Division, winning.

2/7th Batt: Relieved the 2/8th Worcs in Right Sector, Neuve Chapelle. HQ is at Port Lost. One man suffered shell shock.

2/8th Batt: Three Coys and HQ moved to billets at La Fosse. C Coy went to billets at Croix Barbee.

SMD RFA: There was an attack on Thiepval in which all batteries co-operated.

Firing heard in England: The artillery fire on the Somme is still rising in violence. On Monday the sound of the guns could be plainly heard in the south of England.

“Les Mascottes,” a well-known Malvern company of entertainers, have given, by Invitation, performances at Norton Barracks, and to wounded soldiers at Battenhall, Worcester.

Pte. A. Frost, son of Mrs. R. Frost, 23 George Street, has been admitted to hospital suffering from myalgia (pain in the spinal cord). He has spent three birthdays in the trenches, and had recovered from gas poisoning.

Begging: Henry Pearson, no fixed abode, was charged with begging at Holt. P.S. Carr said he had received many complaints from people in the district as to the defendant’s conduct. He carried a big stick, and threatened people with it when he stopped them. Sentenced to 14 days.

Children’s Court: Two Worcester schoolboys, Leonard Victor Williams, 5, St. Martin’s Gate, and Horace Hemmings , 41, Lower Chestnut Street, who were found up a plum tree on the plantation of Mr. Edwin Bearcroft, at Rushwick, pleaded guilty to charges of theft of 3lbs. of plums. Both boys’ fathers were fighting in France. The boys were fined 1s. each, and the Chairman advised the mothers to thrash them. Mr. Bearcroft added that 240 of his trees had been ransacked by boys.

Content researched by the Worcestershire World War 100 project team.