Harry Briggs, Leonard Brutnell, Sidney Walter Brothwell, Herbert Brown, Arthur Cousins, Robert William Day, Arthur Elvidge, Fred Fairchild, Eric John Garwood, George Edward Healey, George Inkley, Alfred Herbert Mitchley, Elijah Needham, John Charles Needham, Walter Needham, Charles Henry (Harry) Randall, William Leonard Randall, John R Roberts, Harry Herbert Rowe, Wilfred Archer Sneath, John Joseph Tasker, Gilbert Ringham Tyler, George Edgar Wright.

¬ HARRY BRIGGS, 34, a native of Thurlby, was a regular soldier who served with the Essex Regiment during the Boer War in South Africa and for eight years in India. After 11 years overseas he returned to England and transferred to the Lincolnshire Regiment before being posted first to Gibraltar followed by Nova Scotia and then Bermuda. When war was declared in 1914 he sailed for Europe and arrived at the front on November 5th with the 2nd Battalion. Corporal Briggs survived the Neuve Chappelle battle unharmed but was killed in action in Flanders in May 1915.

¬ ALFRED MITCHLEY, 22, worked for the retail grocery department at Wherry's in Bourne and was well known in the locality. He enlisted in the Lincolnshire Regiment shortly after the outbreak of war and in 1915 he married Lizzie Peasgood of Northorpe House, Thurlby. Corporal Mitchley saw action with the 10th Battalion,. the Lincolnshire Regiment, during the first offensive of the Battle of the Somme on 1st July 1916 when the British Army suffered its worst defeat for over a century with massive numbers of men killed and wounded, mainly from machine gun fire. On the first anniversary of their wedding, Lizzie Mitchley received the news that Alfred had been killed in action on that day.

¬ ERIC GARWOOD, 25, was born at Thurlby and attended the village school. His parents, William and Annie Garwood, both died shortly before the outbreak of the war. Eric enlisted in the Lincolnshire Regiment and while serving during the Gallipoli campaign in 1915 contracted enteric [typhoid] fever and was shipped home to a military hospital in Liverpool where he died on 7th August 1916. Lance Corporal Garwood's body was brought home to Thurlby for burial at St Firmin's Church and his is the only Commonwealth War Grave in the village.

¬ WILFRED SNEATH, 30, son of Henry and Elizabeth Sneath, and cousin of Eric Garwood, was educated at Thurlby Board School and Grantham Technical Institute. He qualified and practised as a highly gifted and successful doctor and surgeon and was awarded several scholarships. At the outbreak of the war he volunteered for service and was commissioned in the Royal Army Medical Corps. While serving with the 6th Welsh Regiment (Territorial) in France in May 1916, Captain Sneath was mentioned in Despatches and the following August he was awarded the Military Cross for conspicuous gallantry and devotion to duty. He was later transferred to No 1 Field Hospital and in June 1917 he spent home leave in Thurlby. The day following his return to duty, while on a tour of inspection with two fellow officers, Captain Sneath was wounded and he died of his injuries on July 12th.

¬ LEONARD BRUTNELL, eldest son of Frederick and Mary Brutnell, worked as a labourer and horseman for his father who was a builder and farmer at Thurlby. He ploughed, sowed and harvested the fields with teams of horses and carted building and road maintenance materials around the local area. He was a handsome young man described as being "of a quiet, sensitive, amiable nature" and had attended the Wesleyan Methodist Chapel and Sunday School throughout his life. Leonard was conscripted in October 1916 and after completing his basic training returned home for six days leave before being sent to the front with the Yorkshire Regiment in December. Private Brutnell's 19th birthday was on 1st January 1917 and at the end of the month he was wounded by shell fire and died on February 7th.

Some of Thurlby's war dead are commemorated on family gravestones in the churchyard. Henry Sneath gave a funeral bier to the parish in memory of his son, Wilfred, but only his nephew, Eric, is buried at St Firmin's Church. All the other casualties of war lie in a foreign field or have no known grave. It is fitting that the lives of all these young men, friends from childhood, are remembered in the village churches. It is particularly appropriate that Leonard Brutnell's name is inscribed on the memorial in the Wesleyan Methodist Chapel, because it was built by his father.

NOTE: Reproduced from an article by Joyce Stevenson published by the
Stamford Mercury on Friday 7th November 2008.

See also Fred Fairchild