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Key dates over October 1916

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31

Lives lost on this day: 7

15th October 1916 - end of a line - Miss Emily Vernon

Rolling casualty count: 4579

2nd Batt: Church Parade was cancelled as the Chaplain was sick. Batt practised musketry on the range south of Le Souiche.

3rd Batt: Batt relieved by 8th South Lancs and marched to bivouacs at Bouzincourt.

4th Batt: An attack was planned for the 18th.Two officers, 30 men and 1 Lewis gun went into No Mans Land to occupy the gun pits. Three Germans were seen. Posts were placed in each pit, the Lewis gun in No 3 Pit covering the Sunken Road.

1/8th Batt: Mounted officers reconnoitred trenches north of Hebuterne facing Gommecourt Park.

2/7th Batt: Church Parade and the baths and kit inspection. A draft of 66 men arrived.

10th Batt: Church Parade am and pm , practice in steady arm drill and advancing behind a barrage.

A Worcestershire Romance –A link with the past is lost in Miss Emily Vernon, one of the Vernons of Hanbury Hall, Worcestershire, who has died at the age of 91. Her father, a former Rector of Hanbury, was the younger son of Mr F Vernon, who inherited the family estates on the death of the Hanbury heiress, first wife of the “Lord of Burleigh”, whose second marriage to Sarah Hoggins has been immortalised by Tennyson. The story of the “Lord of Burleigh’s” marriage to the “village maiden” is often told, but nothing is ever said about Henry Cecil’s first wife, whose misconduct caused him to pose as an undertaker at the Shropshire village of Bolas, where he married the village maiden of the poem. The first wife will, of course, be blamed, but she sacrificed her own happiness to gratify her father’s ambition in marrying the prospective bearer of one of England’s proudest titles. Cecil was kind to his wife, but she was wretched in a loveless union, and ran away with a young clergyman, whom she married. They settled in Spain or Portugal, where the clergyman soon died. His widow returned home and married her agent, a Mr Burke, but lived in great seclusion afterwards, distributing much of her ample fortune in charity.

National Egg Collection – It is now 12 months since the National Egg Collection Depot was opened at the Guildhall. Since then then 35,909 eggs have been collected at the Guildhall. Most of these eggs have been sent to London and then to France, as the need for them is greater at the base hospitals than elsewhere. Because most of the north of France is in enemy hands, our wounded have been dependent upon us for supply. What remains after satisfying the base hospitals are given to hospitals in England.

Information researched by The Worcestershire World War 100 team