Genealogical war memorials of Bournemouth’s fallen
St Eloi: March 2nd, 1915
Introduction
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 (25): family progress
From servants to smallholders
The Collins rose from the humble status of domestic service to the respectability of smallholders and retailing. His great-grandfather, a Dorset man, came to Hordle, near Lymington, and married (1833). By his fifties, a significant change had occurred. In 1861, the census lists him as a landholder, while, adjacent to him, his son—who had also begun life as a common labourer—farmed an equal acreage. Each held 24 acres, a basic unit in a manorial estate. They may have benefited from an opportunity created in the area by the recent enclosure award. This land lay very near Hazelhurst House, held by a substantial proprietor. Collins’s great-grandfather, perhaps, drove this man’s coach, saving funds, and even borrowing from his employer to acquire this holding. Thus, as independent landholders, the family entered a respectable tier of the community, farming beside local gentry. By 1881, however, substantial changes in circumstances had occurred.
The squeeze
The old coachman, a widower, lodged with a tailor in Lymington, but still listed himself as ‘farmer’. Meanwhile, his son, who had held the other virgate, now listed himself as ‘innkeeper and farmer’, his tavern The Three Bells in Hordle. Their copyhold may have expired after twenty-one years. At this period, the agricultural reality did not match its social glamour as a depression had begun. To renew the copyhold could have cost a sum now beyond them. Also, a new landowner in the district, Judge Peterson, pursuing active changes to the landscape, may have wanted to absorb their virgates. The couple still had a holding, perhaps part of the tavern, so could retain their important social title of ‘farmer’. Collins’s father, the coachman’s grandson, had made a substantial change to his trajectory. Instead of becoming a farmer in Hordle, he moved to Pokesdown, part of Bournemouth, and became a butcher.
From butcher’s son to sergeant
Thus, Collins spent his early years living with the smells and bustle of his father’s butcher’s business. In the last two decades of Victorian Bournemouth, substantial growth occurred. The number of butchers’ shops more than doubled. In Pokesdown, the rate of increase exceeded this. The Collins butchery business disappeared from the local trade directories. By 1901, the family had moved back near Hordle, where Collins’s father found a smallholding. Success may have occurred, as Collins, at 14, did not work. Following his father’s example, however, Collins broke away from farming. He became a professional soldier and joined the King’s Royal Rifles, a choice that took him to northern India. As had his forebearers, he seems to have flourished. Already in 1911, he had become a lance-corporal. In October 1914, the battalion moved to France and entered the war. At some point, Collins enjoyed further success by becoming a sergeant.
Tales from the Front (25): Flanders
Inglorious mud
The battalion arrived in France by mid-December (1914). During January, the men spent three days in the trenches. Here, they experienced conditions unlike those in India. Almost 400 men received frostbite and experienced swollen feet. The battalion war diarist, appalled by what he saw, wrote: ‘The trenches of the first line are very deep in mud and water … cannot be naturally drained … unfit for occupation … good cover but not bullet-proof … communication trenches are almost unusable …’ If soldiers manning the mud-filled trenches of Western Europe dropped an item, they considered it lost. Due to the brutal climatic conditions, soldiers could only endure duty in the trenches for a maximum of twenty-four hours. To compound the misery, death might come from several sources. Artillery shells, snipers’ bullets, and hand-to-hand fights with bayonets offered a cocktail of sudden mortality delivered in the freezing mud.
The night attack at St Eloi
Tasked with entering and capturing a German trench near St Eloi, the battalion launched its attack after the artillery fired its starting signal at 0030, March 2nd, 1915. The men experienced early success, but the situation changed. ‘From this moment, accurate information as to what happened … is hard to obtain.’ The attack seemed to lose its way, giving the enemy time to regroup behind a barricade. ‘Rifle and machine-gun fire so swept the open zone that any man standing up was immediately hit.’ The battalion’s killed and wounded blocked the way, impeding progress. A diagnosis concluded that problems occurred because the enemy already knew about the attack, the trench’s depth hindered the men’s departure, and a full moon appeared at the start. The attack stopped before 0600. That night, in addition to many men wounded and missing, the battalion lost the CSM, Collins and four other sergeants.
Aftermath
Estates left by Collins’s grandfather and parents—ranging from a few hundred to almost fifteen hundred pounds—indicate the family’s solid middle-ranking status. His parents and siblings lived through the war. Some sisters entered service but soon married. Their husbands had white-collar jobs. A younger brother, perhaps in the war, had a coal merchant’s business in Highcliffe, leaving an estate worth more than £21,000 (1976). Thus, although Collins did not live to see it, the family’s hard-won respectability, despite some setbacks, deepened in the decades after his death.
After this disaster, the battalion remained in the area, fought at least one other action, then went into reserve. They received reinforcements, some from Fiji. Typewritten casualty lists contained in the war diary indicate the extent of their fighting. During the last week of March, the numbers rose above average, highest on the 26th. In November, the battalion joined the force dispatched to Salonika.
Takeaway
Tales from the Front (25) followed George Collins (1888-1915), who served with the 4th Battalion, King’s Royal Rifles. His career mirrored his family’s ambitious rise from domestic service to independent tradesmen and smallholders in Hordle and Pokesdown. He made rapid progress, ascending the ladder from a peacetime Lance-Corporal in India to a wartime Sergeant in Flanders. He had become a vital link in his battalion’s command. Sergeant Collins fell during a chaotic night raid at St Eloi.
‘Tales from the Front’
A collection of personal stories honouring the natives of Victorian Bournemouth 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.
The posts weave genealogical data together with eyewitness accounts found in war diaries, contemporary press coverage, and official military histories. The series offers a powerful and intimate portrait of Bournemouth’s wartime heroes offset with live accounts of battlefield action.
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. Reconstructions based on available sources.
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