Investigations of a Dog

90 years ago today Private Charles Wenham of 10th Lincolnshire Regiment died. He was almost certainly the brother of my great-grandfather William A. Wenham (I’ve posted about William’s experiences in the Great War here and here).

Charles Wenham was born in Grimsby in 1887. In 1901 he was living with his family in Rutland Street and working as an errand boy. In 1912 he married Ethel Lovejoy, who was recorded as living at 24 Neville Street during the war.

Charles served as a private in 10th Battalion Lincolnshire Regiment (Grimsby Chums). His service number 28180 means he is unlikely to have been an original chum, and so probably wasn’t with them at the Somme. He served overseas after the end of 1915, qualifying for the War and Victory medals (see medal card). At some point he was wounded in action, but so far we have no details of when or where. William’s letters imply that he might have been wounded in March or April 1917, possibly at the first battle of the Scarpe. He was brought back to England and died of wounds at Leicester Military Hospital on 17th November 1917. His body was brought home and buried in Cleethorpes cemetery on 21st November. This is how his death was reported in the Grimsby Daily Telegraph on 20th November:

WENHAM. On 17th inst., at Leicester Military Hospital, Pte. C. Wenham, of the Lincolns, the dearly loved husband of Ethel Wenham, 24, Neville Street. Military funeral at Cleethorpes Cemetery, Wednesday afternoon, 2 o’clock. Died of wounds.

The grave is still maintained by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission. We have no photos of Charles and no idea what happened to his medals and death plaque. Ethel remarried in 1918 and does not appear to have had any children with Charles.

I’m trying to get some “proper” English Civil War related work done this week, but at the weekend I did some more First World War stuff. In April I posted about World War I on Flickr, when I uploaded my great-grandfather’s photos from Cottbus PoW camp. Now I’ve added his letters, and another photo which I got from ebay. Although he isn’t on it, it was taken in the theatre at Cottbus and one of the men has the same “Bing Bong Boys” navy outfit:

I’ve now put each letter/postcard in its own set to make the link between the front and back of the same document more explicit. The sets are then arranged into collections. Some people on the Great War Forum were able to help me locate Cottbus Camp No. I, so now most of the photos have been placed on the map.

I also discovered that another Wenham brother might have died in the Great War. I don’t know why I hadn’t ever looked for Wenhams on CWGC before, but I found a Charles Wenham who could well be one of William’s brothers. Some of the evidence is circumstantial and I need to do more digging to be sure, but the epistemic probabilities are quite high. So far it looks like he joined 10th Lincolnshire Regt (Grimsby Chums), served overseas, was wounded and sent back to England but died of his wounds. Unlike the soldiers who died overseas, his body was brought home and buried in Cleethorpes cemetery. Again the Great War Forum has been a great help, and you can see more details on this thread.

And with regard to the other World War, I played some more of Brothers In Arms: Earned In Blood. I was still a bit curious about the post-Hill 30 storyline, but so far it’s been quite boring, and I gave up when I got into a silly tank level that’s suspiciously similar to the silly tank level in Road To Hill 30 that I complained about before. But there are more trees this time…