Person:Samuel Taylor (39)

Hospital Street's Globe Inn stood on the corner of William Street North. It was bombed in December 1940. The device actually fell on the neighbouring St.George's Mission Hall which was also partly ruined. The bomb blast apparently went sideways causing more damage to the pub than the Mission Hall. The image shows the devastation it caused. I wasn't sure of the names of the customers who died but two others were fatally wounded. The bomb also took the life of the pub's manager Howard Aldington. A very respected publican, he was always dressed immaculately. He had run the pub for many years before the war. I have been told (though I have not confirmed this via press cuttings) that his wife was also a victim of another bomb attack after she had moved to another address. (Kieron - Midland Pubs Webmaster)

'Samuel Taylor is buried in a public grave numbered 016654 in section 119. His register no. is 368301, as this is a public grave this will not have a headstone. There is no record of Minnie Taylor being buried here at Witton cemetery.'
Witton Cemetery - 11/2004

11th Battalion, Formed at Warwick in October 1914, as part of K3.
September 1914 :Army Troops attached to 24th Division on South Downs.
Joined 112th Brigade, 37th Division in April 1915 on Salisbury Plain.
To France 30.7.15.
Disbanded in France, in Wardrecques area, on 7.2.18.

From "The Story of the Royal Warwickshire Regiment (Formerly the Sixth Foot) by Charles Lethbridge Kingsford 1674 to 1920".
"The 11th (Service) Battalion under Lt-Col C.S. Collison was in the 112th Brigade and came out at the beginning of August 1915. It went almost at once, to Hebuterne, and served in the trenches at Hennescamps (to the north of Gommecourt) from September 1915 till June 1916."

The 11th Bn The Royal Warwicks landed in France on 30/31 July 1915. The battalion's original War Diary is at the National Archives at Kew. A copy of the War Diary is kept at the Royal Warwickshire Museum in Warwick and a small book was published about the 11th Royal Warwicks Service on the Somme 1916 shortly after the war.