Four Sunday School boys

Four lads who all attended the same Sunday School at the Congregational [now United Reformed Church] in Bourne were killed during the Great War.

They were:

203706 Private Harold Leonard JOYCE (or JOICE), 2nd/5th Battalion Lincolnshire Regiment, who died of wounds in France on 17th April 1918 and is buried at Wimereux Communal Cemetery near Boulogne, France.

170888 Gunner Frank (or Francis) STUBLEY, 32nd Battery, Royal Field Artillery, who died of wounds in France on 1st April 1918 and is buried at St Sever Cemetery Extension in Rouen, France.

19755 Private Reginald SMITHSON, 9th Battalion, the Norfolk Regiment, who was killed in action in France on 21st March 1918 and is commemorated on the Arras Memorial in France.

Walter FENTON - unknown. There is no local record of this soldier and so presumably he moved away from Bourne before the war broke out.

The names of Joyce, Stubley and Smithson are all recorded on the War Memorial in South Street, Bourne, and on the Roll of Honour in the Abbey Church.

Their deaths were reported by the Grantham Journal on Saturday 4th May 1918 which said: "A memorial service was held at the Congregational Church in Bourne on Sunday evening for four boys who were formerly scholars at the Sunday School, viz., Walter Fenton, Harold Joyce, Francis Stubley and Reginald Smithson. The service was conducted by the Rev J Comyn Jones, the pastor, who referred to the sacrifice these young men had made for the protection of our lives and homes. Suitable hymns were sung, and the service was largely attended."