Tales from the Front (12)

Genealogical war memorials of Bournemouth’s fallen.

La Bassee: October 13th, 1914

Introduction

Tales from the Front (12) tells the story of Henry Charles Hopkins, a Bournemouth native who fought in the Great War. Private Hopkins, a former fruit seller serving with the 1st Battalion of the Dorsetshire Regiment, fell on October 13th, 1914, at La Bassee. This battle served as the overture to the First Battle of Ypres. The battalion had already experienced heavy losses, but this day proved a terrible time for the men, including Morris and other Bournemouth natives.

Tales from the Front (12): Part 1

Vanished sunlit afternoons

To Hopkins, the villages through which the BEF had to fight may once have resembled where he lived: Lytchett Minster. Now, however, ravaged by artillery and the rough edge of war, their texture will have become alien. If he had spent the last decade living in ‘long, sunlit afternoons’, that world had vanished. Reality now consisted of mud, fog, and sudden bayonet tussles, contested along the dank La Bassee canal. Direct hits from enemy artillery transformed houses from shelters into death traps. On the morning of October 12th, the fog froze, restricting vision to fifty yards. Skirmishes occurred throughout the day. That afternoon, the Germans attacked the British, coming along the La Bassee Canal. Here, they ran into the 1st Battalion, Dorsets, who repulsed them at the point of the bayonet. The next day would seem like a re-enactment of these events. So, would the casualty numbers, now including Hopkins.

Tales from the Front (12): Part 2

Active kinship

Hopkins came from a lineage shaped by labour, movement, and resilience. In 1861, his grandfather worked the fields around Witchampton, near Wimborne, whatever the weather, rain or shine. In this slow, rural world, families survived through shared customs and tight-knit kinship networks that could absorb single mothers and babies. These groups drifted between villages around the area, seeking work, always shadowed by the threat of the workhouse, yet buoyed by small joys—harvest feasts, ploughing contests, the rhythm of the seasons. By 1880, both sides of Hopkins’s family had seen a better future elsewhere. They gravitated toward Bournemouth’s growing opportunities and a chance for stability. His mother’s family had come from the other side of Poole. Labouring and laundering sustained them, while marriages intertwined the families even further; Hopkins’s sister wed his wife’s brother. By 1911, the Hopkins household still brimmed with siblings and apparent promise, no war yet.

Fruit

At first, Hopkins followed the family tradition of labouring for a living. Aged 18 in 1901, he continued to live with his parents but contributed to their upkeep. The family had now settled in Parkstone, a growing settlement west of Bournemouth. Early in 1911, Hopkins married. His wife may have come from one of the Purbeck villages, the daughter of a clay digger. Like her new husband, she also came from a family consisting of many children. By now, Hopkins had become employed selling fruit. He and his wife set up home in Lytchett Minster, a village lying between the two families. They may have chosen this area because of its proximity to her family. The couple must have had sufficient income to start a family. Hopkins left two children behind when he went to France. He would not see the third before falling at the havoc in La Bassee.

Tales from the Front (12): Part 3

The sad day

October 13th ‘was not a happy day for anyone’. By now, the Germans had strengthened their forces in the area. The BEF may not have appreciated this change. Earlier, the battalion had pushed up, but came under fire from different angles, including the left rear. Their commanding officer received several wounds before becoming a prisoner, having his clothing removed. Despite their numerical strength, the enemy felt the need to employ treachery. Twenty came forward, hands raised. The Dorsets advanced to accept the surrender, whereupon the Germans fell flat. A fusillade from the flank wreaked havoc among the Dorsets, ‘much shaken and pitifully thinned’. After these setbacks, the battalion withdrew to an earlier position. The day created a lengthy butcher’s bill. Many men went missing, others had wounds, while the dead numbered almost a hundred. The latter included Henry Charles Hopkins, lying far from his sunlit fruit stand in Lytchett Minster.

Aftermath

After the war, Hopkins’s father went into business, opening a greengrocer’s. Both he and his wife survived into the 1930s and 1940s. Hopkins’s widow appears to have kept that condition. Her family’s background may have helped her guide her children’s future. One son followed her father’s employment as a clay digger. The other son became a bricklayer, while her daughter married a man in the same trade. As mentioned, Hopkins’s sister had married into his wife’s family. Her husband joined the Hampshires, serving in the Middle East, suffering several bouts of dysentery. He survived the war.

Meanwhile, the Dorsets continued to bleed. They lost twenty‑six more men on October 22nd, then they held the line at Messines as October turned to November. Through those terrible months of the First Battle of Ypres, death became a daily visitor—one man gone each day, the slow toll of a battalion worn thin.

Takeaway

Tales from the Front (12) has explored the life and world of Henry Charles Hopkins (1885-1914). A fruit salesman, he joined the 1st Battalion, Dorsetshire Regiment, going to France in 1914. He left behind his wife, two children, and a third, still unborn. If he had served from the beginning, he would have experienced several testing engagements where his battalion lost men. On October 13th, he fell on a bad day, alongside almost a hundred others serving with the battalion.

‘Tales from the Front’

A collection of personal stories honouring the Bournemouth natives who gave their lives on the battlefield and the regiments with which they served. Blending social and military history with genealogical insight, it explores their roots, families, occupations, and the ultimate sacrifices they made for their country.

Set against the backdrop of regimental war diaries and enriched by period media accounts, the series offers a powerful and intimate portrait of Bournemouth’s wartime heroes — a mosaic of personal courage within the broader sweep of history.

Serving as a companion and continuation of Victorian Bournemouth, Tales from the Front forms part of News from the Past: History for the Rest of Us.

References

For references and engagement, please get in touch. Main primary sources: here and here (subscriptions needed). For War Diaries, go here. See also here. The featured picture shows an imagined scene.