The Stooke brothers

Four of the five Stooke brothers who were killed

One of the most tragic stories from the Great War of 1914-18 was that of the Stooke brothers from Carlby, near Bourne. Seven of them enlisted but only three of them came back.

They were all the sons of John Robert Stooke, headmaster of the village school at Essendine, and his wife Christiana Charlotte Stooke. The couple had eight sons and six daughters and when John died in 1910, his wife moved to Carlby to take over the village public house known as The Plough.

At the outbreak of the war in 1914, seven of the brothers joined up and all served at the front line in Flanders and France where four of them were killed.

FRANK STOOKE was a sapper serving with the 59th company, Royal Engineers when he died from a bullet wound at Boulogne, France, on 16th May 1915. He was 35, and had lived at Belmesthorpe, near Stamford, with his wife, Ellen May Stooke, and their three daughters.

ARTHUR STOOKE was serving with as an airman 1st class in the balloon section of the Royal Flying Corps when he was killed on 3rd January 1917, aged 27. He is commemorated on the Arras Flying Services Memorial at Pas de Calais in France.

FREDERICK STOOKE was serving as a private with the 3rd Battalion, the Coldstream Guards when he was killed on 13th April 1918, aged 20. He is commemorated on the Ploegsteert Memorial in Belgium.

EDGAR STOOKE was was serving as a private with the 2nd Battalion, Sherwood Foresters (Notts and Derby Regiment) when he was killed near Ypres on 26th April 1918, aged 18. He is buried at the Brandhoek New Military Cemetery No 3 in Belgium.

A marble plaque inside St Stephen's Church at Carlby records the names of the four brothers together with three other men from the village who were also killed in action, Ernest Couzens, Edward Green and Frederick Holmes.

Several sources on the Internet devoted to the Great War suggest that a fifth brother, Harold Stooke, was also killed but this is incorrect. He born in 1895 and became an apprentice grocer, serving with the Lincolnshire Regiment and was promoted to corporal but he survived. He returned to civilian life, married Nancy Lewis in 1942 and died in August 1985, aged 90.