Tales from the Front (35) tells the story of Frederick George Jeans, a native of Victorian Bournemouth, who fought in the Great War. Private Jeans, a former gardener, enlisted with the First Battalion, Dorset Regiment. He fell at Hill 60, near Ypres, in the evening of May 1st, 1915, a victim of poison gas, a new type of killing agent.
Tales from the Front (34) tells the story of Henry Targett, a native of Victorian Bournemouth, who fought in the Great War. Private Targett served with the 2nd Battalion, Hampshire Regiment. He survived the landing at Cape Helles, Gallipoli, Turkey, but not the battle fought at Krithia, three days later. His story shows how a family’s fortunes shifted across two centuries of rural decline, industrial opportunity, and wartime sacrifice.
Tales from the Front (32) tells the story of Alfred Charles Holley, a native of Victorian Bournemouth, who fought in the Great War. Private Holley had already served with the First Battalion, Dorset Regiment, but returned to civil life. By April 1915, however, the war had summoned him back to the ranks. He reenlisted and served in Belgium, to fall at Hill 60, a small mound of huge strategic importance to both sides.
Tales from the Front (31) tells the story of William Lanham, a native of Victorian Bournemouth, who fought in World War I. A former labourer, Private Lanham, a member of the First Battalion, Dorsetshire Regiment, fell during the savage fighting at Hill 60.
Tales from the Front (30) recounts the life of Charles Baverstock, a native of Victorian Bournemouth, who fought in World War I. Baverstock served with the Second Battalion, Dorset Regiment. Posted to India in 1909, he joined the expedition sent from India to protect British oil supplies in Lower Mesopotamia. Several Bournemouth natives fell in this campaign, including Lance-Corporal Baverstock at the decisive battle of Shaiba.
Tales from the Front (29) recounts the life of William Arthur Andrews, a native of Victorian Bournemouth, who fought in World War I. Andrews had joined the Second Battalion, Dorset Regiment, serving with them in India and Mesopotamia. He shipped out as part of the IEF ‘D’ force, tasked with protecting British oil supplies in southern Iraq. His story ends at Shaiba, a hard-fought battle in April 1915.
Tales from the Front (26) recounts the life of Albert Frank Dashwood, a native of Victorian Bournemouth, who fought in World War I. Before the war, he had worked as an errand boy and, later, an ironmonger’s porter. Before the war he had served with the Territorials, later going on reserve but recalled in 1914. Lance-Corporal Dashwood died of wounds at Vlamertinghe, near Ypres, early in March 1915.
Tales from the Front (25) recounts the life of George Collins, a native of Victorian Bournemouth who fought in World War I. Before the war, he had joined the regular army, serving with the 4th Battalion, King’s Royal Rifle Corps, in India. They had returned to Europe as the BEF increased its numbers for the winter campaign in Western Europe. Sergeant Collins, a successful man from a successful family, fell at St Eloi early in March 1915.
Tales from the Front (24) traces the intertwined fates of Erasmus and William Trickett, two young labourers whose lives ended at Ypres in 1915. Their reconstructed story reveals how inherited customs, closed networks, and local identity struggled against the pressures of modernity, migration, and industrial conflict. Thus, through genealogy, social history, and battlefield detail, the narrative shows how war accelerated change and reshaped families whose futures once seemed secure.
Tales from the Front (23) tells the story of Thomas Avey Dix, a native of Victorian Bournemouth, who fought in the Great War. A professional soldier, he served with the 2nd Dorsets in India before coming with them to invade Mesopotamia (Iraq) in 1914. The official records list Private Dix’s demise as November 19th, two days after the expeditionary force won a significant victory at Sahil.