Genealogical war memorials of Bournemouth’s fallen
Hill 60: May 3rd, 1915
Introduction
Tales from the Front (43) tells the story of Richard Tarrant, a native of Victorian Bournemouth, who fought in the Great War. Corporal Tarrant had left behind a successful football career and a wife with two children to march with the First Battalion, Dorset Regiment. Stationed with A Company behind Hill 60, he appears to have avoided the poison gas delivered on May 1st, but fell by enemy fire two days later.
Tales from the Front (43): Background
Industry
Tarrant descended from industrious women, a characteristic that continued with his generation. A grandmother had worked at making watch-chains, an enterprise in Christchurch that attracted many labouring women from here and the surrounding rural settlements. She and her husband, an Exeter farm labourer, remained in the Christchurch area. One of their sons, John Tarrant, married Alice Moore, born near Sherborne, who, as a teenager, worked as an agricultural carter. Her husband learned a skill suitable for Bournemouth’s booming construction industry. He became a plasterer. By 1901, two sons from a large family had joined their father in covering walls with plaster. Alice supported the family by working as a laundress. By 1911, this may have become a family business. The census shows that four of her daughters also worked in a laundry. Thus, Tarrant’s family illustrated how, working together, skill and industry might transform their social position.
A football life
Richard Tarrant’s world consisted of football. Bournemouth and its suburbs hosted many football clubs. These played at different levels. He grew up in Pokesdown, a suburb which had a prominent team. His skills attracted the attention of Boscombe Football Club, perhaps the leading team. They played their home games at Dean Court, an important local venue. The names of the teams in the Hampshire League show how football and work life went together. Gasworks and Tramways, for example, illustrate this. ‘Bossie’ Tarrant played for Tramways now and again, but most references concerned his playing for Boscombe. This club became dominant in the years before the war. They won their title four years in a row while its stewards improved its financial basis. Tarrant played when the club had amateur status, supporting himself as a football groundsman by 1911. Next year, he married and had two children.
Local hero
Although the press did not refer to Tarrant playing for Boscombe in the season before the war, he had enjoyed a prolific season the year earlier. He excelled in attack, combining with other attackers in flowing moves that resulted in goals: ‘… some clever, combined work between Tarrant, Smith, and Blanchard’; ‘a pretty combined movement by Tarrant’ and two others. When required, he could show the initiative and dominate a game. ‘… Tarrant earned applause for the way he worried the opposing defence …’ ‘… Tarrant was soon prominent …’ On occasion, he scored multiple goals, four in the game where they destroyed Poole 8-0. The reports also suggest that he could take the lead: ‘ … Tarrant led his forwards ably … ‘ As part of this greater role, he would support the defence, playing centre-half against Bournemouth, where he ‘put in a heap of work’.
Tales from the Front (43): Hill 60
”Bossie’s’ last game?’
The Christmas truce of 1914 became a vestige of the mythology that modern warfare should invoke chivalry and an age of innocence. This event included the possibility that combatants played football against each other. Some deny this, but others accept it. One alleged fixture occurred at Wulverghem, not far from Ypres. Just before Christmas, the first Dorset battalion moved here. Corporal ‘Bossie’ Tarrant, A Company, would have had his Christmas here. It would have fit the mythology if Tarrant had played in this game, helping his military pals as he had his Boscombe FC teammates. He may have played for the Cherries or Tramways in previous Christmas Day matches, encouraging his team, taking the lead when needed. The war diary, however, remains silent about the truce: quiet, nothing happening, no casualties. In 1915, however, nostalgia evaporated, and the chivalry of war vanished in a puff of gas.
May 3rd, 1915
At 0300 on this day, a whiz-bang exploded near Sergeant Shephard, the diarist. ‘The whiz-bangs came nearer than ever before, had lots of near escapes.’ ‘Bossie’ Tarrant, who served in a different company of the Dorsets to Shephard, did not manage to escape on that day. His sergeant described the events in a letter to Tarrant’s widow, released to the press. “On the afternoon of the day on which he was killed, A Company (of the Dorset Regiment) were in dugouts behind the firing line. In the evening, a party of men were sent out to improve a communication trench, and your husband was the N.C.O. in charge of the party …The enemy opened fire, and your husband was killed, death being instantaneous. We brought him back and laid him to rest 600 yards behind the firing line, just a little to the rear of the much-talked-of Hill 60.”
Obituary
In the account of his demise, the local press also included a substantial reference to his football life. The description of his skills and contributions to the Cherries echoes his frequent mentions in earlier years. ‘Deceased was one of the most prominent football players in Bournemouth, and as popular with his football companions as he was in the regiment. A centre-forward of the dashing type, he always gave of his best and was quick to take advantage of opportunities presented to him. He played for several clubs in the district, but the Tramways and Boscombe were the two for which he did most service, and no player on either side was more popular with the spectators than “Bossie”, as he was familiarly called. His playing abilities received recognition from the county authorities, and he played for Hampshire in several of the Southern Counties’ Amateur Championship games’.
Aftermath
The 1921 census has no record of Tarrant’s parents, but as adults his siblings created households. His sisters married men of similar employment and social background to their father: plasterer, bricklayer, carman, and greengrocer. One became a widow early in 1918. Of his brothers, one served with the Hampshire Regiment and survived the war, an unemployed plasterer in 1921. His other two brothers appear to have trained as upholsterers, still so employed in 1939. Tarrant’s widow remarried; her second husband, born in Boscombe, worked as a shunter.
The Dorsets remained around Hill 60 until July. Despite ‘heavy fire’ all night, Shephard found time on the morning of June 1st to examine the bird life. They pleased him by conducting ‘business as usual’. Dark humour evolved. The Germans erected a sign on the hill inviting them to surrender. ‘Of course, we did as he asked, I don’t think.’
Takeaway
Tales from the Front (43) has explored the background, life, and military career of Richard William Tarrant (1885-1915). Employed as a football groundsman, he won fame as a leading player for Boscombe Football Club. The ‘Cherry Stripes’ profited from his frequent goals. He contributed to the success of today’s Premier League team (AFC Bournemouth). On the football pitch, he acted as a leader, an aptitude recognised by the army, which promoted him to Corporal. He survived the gas attack of May 1st but succumbed to artillery or rifle fire two days later.
‘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—genealogical information based on available sources.
Kitablios Shu