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16th (Public Schools) Battalion, Middlesex Regiment
The 16th (Public Schools) Battalion, Middlesex Regiment (Duke of Cambridge's Own) was raised in London on the 1st of September 1914 by Lt-Col. J.J.Mackay. They trained at Kempton Park racecourse, moving to Warlingham in December. They joined 100th Brigade, 33rd Division at Clipstone Camp in July and moved to Perham Down for final training in August. They proceeded to France on the 17th of November, landing at Boulogne. 33rd Division concentrated near Morbecque, being strengthened by the exchange of 98th Brigade for the experienced 19th Brigade from 2nd Division. On the 25th of February 1916 they left Division and transferred to GHQ Troops then
joined 86th Brigade, 29th Division on the 25th of April. In July they went into action in the Battles of the Somme. In 1917 they were in action in the The First, Second and Third Battle of the Scarpe during the Arras Offensive, then moved to Flanders and fought in the The Battle of Langemarck, The Battle of Broodseinde and The Battle of Poelcapelle. Before moving south for The Battle of Cambrai. In early 1918 the army was reorganised and on the 11th of February the 16th Middlesex were disbanded near Poperinghe in Belgium with troops transferring to other units.
4th Nov 1915 Orders
5th Nov 1915 Exercise
6th Nov 1915 Advance Party
7th Nov 1915 Advance Party
8th Nov 1915 Inspection
8th Nov 1915 Orders
1st Dec 1915 Reliefs 
2nd Dec 1915 Poor Conditions
3rd Dec 1915 On the March
4th Dec 1915 Quiet
6th Dec 1915 Bombardment
7th Dec 1915 Mean Tricks
7th Dec 1915 Artillery Active
8th Dec 1915 Mine Exploded
9th Dec 1915 Wet Day
10th Dec 1915 Moves
11th Dec 1915 Reliefs
12th Dec 1915 Flooding
12th Dec 1915 Training
15th Dec 1915 Training
17th Dec 1915 Instructions Issued
19th Dec 1915 Instructions
20th Dec 1915 Reorganisation
21st Dec 1915 Storm
22nd Dec 1915 Conference
23rd Dec 1915 Orders Issued
24th Dec 1915 Flooding
25th Dec 1915 Instruction
26th Dec 1915 Flooding
27th Dec 1915 On the March
28th Dec 1915 Reliefs
30th Dec 1915 Reliefs
31st Dec 1915 Shelling
14th May 1916 Into the Line At 3pm 18th DLI proceeded from Bus Les Artois to front line trenches and took over from 11th East Yorks Regt.
Battalion on left flank was 16th West Yorks Regt and on right 1st Lancashire Fusiliers up to 18th May 1916 and then afterwards the 16th Middlesex Regt.
The National Archives 18DLI War Diary WO95/2361/1
30th Jun 1916 Preparations 
Soldiers of the 16th (Public Schools) Battalion, Middlesex Regiment of the 29th Division parading at 'White City' opposite Hawthorn Ridge for the attack on Beaumont Hamel. Behind them is a group from the 2nd Battalion, Seaforth Highlanders of the 4th Division. © IWM (Q 796) The officer in the middle left (with his back to camera, removing his cap) is Second Lieutenant Norman Frank Currall of the 1st Battalion, East Lancashire Regiment.
If you can provide any additional information, please add it here.
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These include information on officers, regimental histories, letters, diary entries, personal accounts and information about actions during the Great War.
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Those known to have served with16th (Public Schools) Battalion, Middlesex Regiment during the Great War 1914-1918. - Allen Harry. L/Sgt. (d.1st July 1916)
- Archer MM. Arnold George. Pte.
- Bell Henry. Pte. (d.2nd Mar 1917)
- Binder MM. Arthur Robert. Sgt. (d.30th May 1917)
- Bourne George. Pte. (d.10th May 1917)
- Dell Charles. Pte. (d.4th October 1917)
- Donovan Reginald. Pte.
- Foot Samuel Ashburner. L/Cpl. (d.1st July 1916)
- Gittens Francis Owen. Pte. (d.1st Jul 1916)
- Hayes James Alfred. L/Cpl. (d.2 February 1917)
- Heath Eustace Nelson. Pte. (d.10th Jan 1916)
- Holman Clive Whelpton. Pte.
- Larkins Charles Horace. 2nd Lt. (d.21st Nov 1917)
- Leadbeater John Philip. Pte. (d.22nd Oct 1916)
- Letts Sydney Scott. Pte. (d.9th July 1916)
- Longworth Cyril. Pte. (d.1st July 1916)
- Longworth Cyril. Pte. (d.1st Jul 1916)
- Machin William Anthony. Pte. (d.24th November 1916)
- Mowbray Alfred Saunders. Pte.
- Norris Henry John Walter Horace. Pte. (d.11th August 1917)
- Painter Herbert George. CSM. (d.1st Jul 1916)
- Perkins Albert. 2nd.Lt. (d.4th October 1917)
- Plumridge George Frederick. Pte. (d.12th Aug 1917)
- Smith Ronald William. Pte.
- Tompkins George. Pte. (d.19th Dec 1917)
- Wilkinson George Jerrard. Sgt. (d.1st Jul 1916)
All names on this list have been submitted by relatives, friends, neighbours and others who wish to remember them, if you have any names to add or any recollections or photos of those listed,
please Add a Name to this List
Records of 16th (Public Schools) Battalion, Middlesex Regiment from other sources.
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Pte. John Philip Leadbeater 16th Btn. Middlesex Regiment (d.22nd Oct 1916) John Philip Leadbeater served with the 16th Middlesex Regiment. He was the son of Mrs. Lilian S. Hannington of 191A Stephendale Rd., Fulham, London.
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Sgt. George Jerrard Wilkinson 16th (Public Schools) Btn. Middlesex Regiment (d.1st Jul 1916) George Wilkinson's name is found on the Uppingham School Memorial, listed as Killed In Action on the Somme on 1st of July 1916, aged 30.
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Pte. George Tompkins 16th (Public Schools) Btn. Middlesex Regiment (d.19th Dec 1917) George Tompkins is my Great Great Uncle, son of Richard Tompkins and Ann Elizabeth Mills.
Brother to my Great Grandfather Alfred Tompkins.
He had 5 brothers and 5 sisters.
He was born in 1884 in Sutton at Hone, was a loader by trade before enlisting and was married to Christiana Barnes in 1910.
His only child Joyce Amy Maude was born in 1912.
He died in France aged 33.
He is buried in Rouen, France at the St Sever Cemetery Extension.
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Pte. George Bourne 16th (Public Schools) Battalion Middlesex Regiment (d.10th May 1917) George Bourne is listed on the war memorial at St Andrews Church, Nuthurst, near Horsham, Sussex
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Pte. Alfred Saunders Mowbray 16th Btn. Middlesex Regiment Alfred Mowbray was wounded and captured at Masnieres on the 23rd of December, he was repatriated on the 27th of December 1918.
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Pte. Arnold George Archer MM. 16th (Public School) Btn. Middlesex Regiment Arnold Archery was awarded the MM after the Battle of Cambrai in which he sustained a gun shot would and subsequently lost his left leg.
His father Harry was a schoolmaster and had been headmaster of the Ormskirk Boys School in the 1880s.
Arnold was taken to the Ormskirk Military Hospital in 1918 to convalesce, to the town his father had taught in and his brother had been born in.
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Pte. Clive Whelpton Holman 16th Btn. Middlesex Regiment Clive Holman graduated from Dulwich College and joined the Army soon after War was declared, as did his two older brothers and a sister (as a nurse.) This information is from the Dulwich College Register.
"Holman, Clive Whelpton,b.12 August 1896. Great War, Pte Publ. Schs. Bn. Middlesex Regt, R.N.Div., Dardanelles. Leading Mechanic, R.N.A.S. (rigid airships)".
His name is listed as crew of the R-29 flying out of Howden Base in Yorkshire. The R-29 attacked and sank the German U-boat UB-115.
After the War, Clive Holman emigrated to B.E.A. (Kenya), then in 1931 to Canada where he lived until his death in July 1980. He still had a piece of a metal girder from an airship which burned in its shed in 1918, and of a plywood girder dismantled at Howden. He was fascinated by airships.
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Pte. Sydney Scott Letts 16th Battalion Middlesex Regiment (d.9th July 1916) Sydney Letts was 36 when he died of wounds received on 1st of July 1916 at Beaumont Hamel. He was a stretcher bearer. Although in the Public Schools battalion, he was only a cellar hand in Chesea. After being wounded in the thigh, he was sent to No. 1 Stationary Hospital in Rouen. He had gas gangrene and but was quite aware and able to talk to the orderly about Chelsea life and smoke his pipe, he was given champagne to help with his blood but died at around 0515 on 9th of July. (All this information from correspondence between his widow and a hospital orderly, but may have been edited by the orderly to make things easier for her).
He is buried at St Sever Commonwealth War Cemetery, Rouen.
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Pte. Reginald Donovan 16th Battalion Middlesex Regiment Reginald Donovan was my father. He joined up in London at the Cockspur Street recruiting office in Autumn 1915 when he was 18 years old and got to France in November 1915. He was with the 16th Battalion, Middlesex Regiment, which we discovered was the Public School Battalion as he went to St. Dunstan's College.
He told me very little about his time in France but I know he was at Ypres (Wipers) and he would say that in the trenches he felt sorry for the Indian soldiers who were always so cold. He told me about the bully beef they had to eat. He somehow survived the Somme but said he was shot, not seriously, early on and lay in No Mans Land until dusk when he crawled back to the trench.
After two months he returned to France and was transferred to 3rd Battalion and shipped off to Salonika. Sometime during his service he was shipped to Malta with malaria which I believe he caught there. He said that the quinine they were given ruined his teeth. But he came home at the end of the war and lived on until 1983.
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Pte. Cyril Longworth 16th Battalion Middlesex Regiment (d.1st July 1916) My Grandmother's brother, my Great-Uncle Cyril Longworth served with 16th Battalion, Middlesex Regiment.
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Pte. Charles Dell 16th Battalion Middlesex Regiment (d.4th October 1917) Charles Dell is my great great uncle and I have been researching him for many years. I recently came across a newspaper article written about him on 12th November 2017. The church, where he was a bell ringer during his younger years, rang their bells in his memory as he died on 4th of October 1917 at the Battle of Broodseinde. He was in the 16th Battalion, Middlesex Regiment.
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2nd Lt. Charles Horace Larkins 16th (Public Schools) Btn. Middlesex Regiment (d.21st Nov 1917) Charles Larkins and his brother Ernest joined up in 1914. Charles joined the 16th Battalion (Public Schools) brigade of the Middlesex Regiment.
He served as a Private at the Battle of the Somme and survived. He was sent back to England for Officer Training and returned to his old Battalion in 1917. He died of wounds on his 21st birthday.
It is not known which Public School he attended as he came from a working family in the east end of London. It is likely that he was picked out as being intelligent at an early age and sponsored by either a benefactor or the Church to attend a Public School. Before the war, he worked at the factory which employed his father, Charles worked in the office.
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2nd.Lt. Albert Perkins 197th Coy. Machine Gun Corps (d.4th October 1917)  Taken from Local Newspaper:-
"Loughborough Town Clerk's son killed".
"Much sympathy was felt in Loughborough with the Town Clerk (Mr. Harry Perkins), who on Tuesday evening received official notification of the death of his second son second Lieut. Albert Perkins, of the Machine Gun Corps, which took place on Oct.4th from wounds. Second Lieut. Perkins was 27 years of age, and married. He was articled to the late Mr. A. E. King, architect, and on his death joined Mr. Haynes in carrying on the business. He enlisted in September 1914, with a number of Loughborough young men. In the Public Schools Battalion, and went to France In November 1915, returning to England the following March to take his cadet's course for a commission. The deceased officer was then attached to the 149th Machine Gun Corps, with which he continued until he had to go into hospital for sickness from which he recovered in about a month, and was then transferred to the 197th M.G.C. and stationed near the Flanders coast."
A letter of Sympathy was received by Mrs. Albert Perkins from the Captain of the Machine Gun Company to which her late husband, Second Lieutenant Perkins, was attached. The writer expresses the deepest sympathy of his brother officers, and says-
"Although he only joined this company a week ago, we were all beginning to have a very warm regard for him, and I am sure that he had not been so unfortunately taken from us we should soon have learned to love him. His bright cheery disposition and companionable ways makes us feel his loss keenly. This being so with us, who only knew him for one short week, makes it very easy for us to have some little idea as to your feelings at the loss of one who must have been dearer to you than life itself". The writer goes to say he was with Second Lieutenant Perkins when he died. During a terrible bombardment a shell burst just outside their shelter and a splinter struck him on the right breast, and in five minutes he passed away, quite peacefully and painlessly. The letter adds: "He died a soldiers death- to my mind the most glorious death to die- but he was young and fair, cut off in his prime, which is always so sad. He showed all the qualities of a gallant soldier and a gentleman, which though, I hope will cheer you when you think of the departed dear one."
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Pte. William Anthony Machin 16th Btn. Middlesex Regiment (d.24th November 1916) I do not know too much as yet about William Machin. I am researching Moseley men whose names appear on memorials in the Moseley area, and he is one of them.
So far, I have discovered that he worked in his father's paper business as a commercial traveller. He was one of twins in a family of six children.
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Pte. Eustace Nelson Heath 16th Btn. Middlesex Regiment (d.10th Jan 1916) Eustace Heath joined up when he was only 16 years old. He went to France with the battalion on 17th of November 1915, and was killed on 10th of January 1916 near Cuinchy when a shell landed on the billet he was in. He was killed before he ever went into action. Eustace Heath is buried in Cambrin Military Cemetery, Calais.
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L/Sgt. Harry Allen 16th (Public Achools) Btn. Middlesex Regiment (d.1st July 1916) Harry Allen died on the Somme serving with the 29th Division at the attack of Beaumont-Hamel.
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CSM. Herbert George Painter 16th Btn. Middlesex Regiment (d.1st Jul 1916) Herbert Painter was the grandfather I never met. In civilian life was a pattern maker by trade and a volunteer in the Coastal Artillery. He joined the army in the 16th (Duke of Cambridge's Own) Public Schools Battalion, Middlesex Regiment in 1914 and was quickly promoted to Colour Sergeant and later Company Sergeant Major. He died on 1st July 1916 near Beaumont Hamel and his remains were never found. He is commemorated at the Thiepval Memorial. He and left a wife and two children. He was 33 years old.
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Pte. Francis Owen Gittens 16th Bn Middlesex Regt (d.1st Jul 1916) Francis Gittens was 19 when he was killed in The Battle of the Somme on the 1st of July 1916. He was the son of Joshua T. and Jane E. Gittens, of 10, St. Francois Valley Rd., Belmont, Trinidad, British West Indies.
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L/Cpl. James Alfred Hayes 16th Battalion Duke of Cambridge's Own - Middlesex Regiment (d.2 February 1917) James Alfred Hayes was my Great Uncle - according to family information killed aged 22 - within 14 days of being posted to France (cannon backfire). Enlisted at Deptford. Buried at Grove Town Cemetery, Meaulte.
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