A national Roll of Honour is maintained by the Police Remembrance Trust and lists officers who were killed or died during the execution of their duty. You may be surprised to learn that one of the constables recorded was a Glynde man, Lawrence Alfred Haines. (Always known as Alfred) Alfred was born in Beddingham in…
Category: WW1
The Adventures of a Sussex Marine
Frederick (Fred) James Gordon was my great-uncle. He was born at 1am on 11th February 1894 and was delivered by Doctor Muir Smith at 23, Commercial Road, Eastbourne. His parents (my great-grand parents) were Frederick and Hannah Gordon. Frederick had a long and adventurous life and my cousin Leeanna and myself hold photographs and postcards that he sent…
Summerdown Kate
Early in the Great War, the Summerdown Convalescent Camp was established on fields to the north-west of Eastbourne just off the East Dean Road. The camp had its own entertainment troupe called the Knut Kamp Komedy Kompany which were based in the camp Recreation Hut and gave weekly concerts. The troupe consisted of musicians, comics and even…
The Forgotten Soldiers of the Great War
Seaford Cemetery contains over 300 Commonwealth War Graves. Although they commemorate many local soldiers, most bear the Canadian maple-leaves. Nineteen graves however are carved with the crest of the British West Indies Regiment (BWIR). I have done extensive research and published details of the Canadian soldiers but this year I would like to tell the…
The Canadian Farmer mentioned on a Sussex Grave
David James McCurdy was born in Winnipeg on 5th December 1886. His father was a farmer and he became a farmer too. His name is recorded on two graves – one in Canada and another thousands of miles away in Sussex On 14th August 1914, soon after war was declared, David enrolled in the Canadian Expeditionary Force at…
27,000 MILES TO SUSSEX
In my family archive I have a small cutting titled “27,000 MILES TO VISIT FATHER’S GRAVE” This is just the thing that piques my interest and encourages me to find out more. Well here is the story! Ernest Alfred Berry was born on 10th December 1870 in Taunton, Somerset , the son of an umbrella-maker Alfred…
A SUSSEX KIWI REMEMBERED
Today I attended the ANZAC service at the Cross of Sacrifice at Eastbourne’s Ocklynge Cemetery. There was a short but moving service and a Māori hymn was sung. Wreaths were laid at the foot of the soaring Cross-of Sacrifice, which indicates a cemetery has more than forty war-graves – this cemetery has over a hundred. After…
The War Memorial that Moved
In the 1950s my great-uncle Reginald Gordon took photographs of a memorial. The negatives were recently developed and I realised they were taken at Birling Gap near East Dean (East Sussex) and show the Robertson War Memorial. The memorial was erected by the National Trust to commemorate the gift of £50,000 by William Alexander Robertson,…
Burial by Proxy?
One of the great losses of the Great War was the enigmatic Field Marshall Lord (Horatio Herbert) Kitchener whose face and pointing finger recruited thousands of men. He was Secretary of State for War and a Cabinet Minister. In 1904 a young man had joined Lord Kitchener’s Staff. He was Oswald Arthur Gerald Fitzgerald from Eastbourne,…
A Good Soldier and Always a Gentleman
John William DANIELS was born in Loughton Essex in 1885, the son of landscape gardener Edwin Daniels from Ruabon, north Wales and Lydia from Shropshire. The family moved to Eastbourne and John was educated at Holy Trinity School. The 1911 Census shows that John with living with his parents and younger sister Annie at 2,…
Quirky Sussex History by Kevin Gordon 