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1st Battalion, East Kent Regiment (The Buffs)
1st Battalion, East Kent Regiment (The Buffs) were in Fermoy when war broke out in August 1914. They were mobilsed with 16th Brigade and returned to England, where 6th Division concentrated near Cambridge for training. They proceeded to France on the 10th of September 1914, landing at St Nazaire. Marched to the Aisne to reinforce the hard-pressed BEF. They moved north to Flanders and were in action at Hooge in 1915. In 1916 they were again in action at Battle of Flers-Courcelette on The Somme, and again in The Battle of Morval and The Battle of Le Transloy, in 1917 they were in action at Hill 70 and Cambrai.In 1918 they saw action in the Battle of St Quentin, The Battles of the Lys, The Advance in Flanders, Battles of the Hindenburg Line and The Pursuit to the Selle. After the Armistice, 6th Division were selected to join the occupation force and they moved into Germany in mid December, being based at Bruehl by Christmas 1918.
1st Oct 1914 Inspection The trenches held by 1st East Kent Regiment, were inspected by Major General H. Hamilton Commanding 3rd Division at 6.30am
Commanding Officer, Adjutant and Captain Raines met General I. Williams at 10am and inspected buildings and walls north of Saint Precord and Vailly with a view of placing them in a state of defence.
This work was carried out by D Company.
D Company 1st East Kent relieved a Company of 5th Northumberland Fusiliers on the battalion's left at 6.30pm.
One man accidentally shot himself in the foot.
2nd Oct 1914 Reliefs
9th Oct 1914 Under Shellfire
10th Oct 1914 Reliefs
12th Oct 1914 Reliefs
13th Oct 1914 On the March
15th Oct 1914 On the March
16th Oct 1914 On the March
17th Oct 1914 On the March
18th Oct 1914 In Action
19th Oct 1914 In Action
20th Oct 1914 In Action
21st Oct 1914 Digging In
22nd Oct 1914 In Support
23rd Oct 1914 In Support
24th Oct 1914 Enemy Attack
25th Oct 1914 Enemy Attacks
26th Oct 1914 Relief
27th Oct 1914 Enemy Attack
28th Oct 1914 Patrol
29th Oct 1914 Artillery Active
30th Oct 1914 Quiet Day
31st Oct 1914 Quiet Day
1st Aug 1918 Dawn Raid
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 with1st Battalion, East Kent Regiment (The Buffs) during the Great War 1914-1918. - Beedie Joseph Clark. Pte. (d.17th March 1917)
- Brown George. Pte. (d.7th Jun 1915)
- Burke James. Pte. (d.7th June 1915)
- Child Robert Deacon de Quincy. 2nd.Lt.
- Eveleigh Alfred E.. Pte. (d.24th Feb 1916)
- Garner Henry. Pte. (d.15th September 1916)
- Gawler Robert. Pte. (d.24th Feb 1916)
- Godfrey Stephen. Pte
- Hawtree Horace Richard . Pte. (d.2nd August 1918)
- Hills DCM, MID. Herbert Walter. Sjt. (d.31st May 1918)
- Jenner Arthur. Pte. (d.28th Aug 1917 )
- Meloy George. L/Sgt. (d.19th Sep 1918)
- Ninnis Allan Edmund. Pte. (d.2nd Aug 1918)
- Shirley Edmund. Pte.
- Spice Percy Marshall. L/Sgt. (d.5th March 1916)
- Spurling Alfred George. Pte. (d.15th April 1917)
- Sturman John Alfred. Pte. (d.31st Dec 1915)
- Sturman John Alfred. Pte. (d.31st Dec 1915)
- Trowell Walter John Albert. Pte
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 1st Battalion, East Kent Regiment (The Buffs) from other sources.
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L/Sgt. George Meloy 1st Btn. East Kent Regiment (d.19th Sep 1918) I found my Great Great Uncle, George Meloy's war record and from there was able to establish where he was buried and made the trip to see his grave 100 years after he had died.
No-one from our family had ever been in that time.
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Pte. John Alfred Sturman 1st Btn. East Kent Regiment (d.31st Dec 1915) John Alfred was my paternal Grandfather's nephew. His father was Noah Sturman, but we have found no record of his mother.
He was born at Lewisham London, and signed up there in 1914. Prior to going to France and Flanders he was stationed at Dover from May to July 1915 where he was docked pay on several occasions for being AWOL.
His army records show that on his death his father could not be located (he was in the Navy). My Grandfather and his sister collected his medals etc.
Also in his records is a note from his father written several years after the event. Noah appears to have tried to establish where his son was buried or commemorated.
It seems that his father had left the Navy and was living in Australia, having no contact with his extended family in England.
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Pte. George Brown 1st Btn. East Kent Regiment (d.7th Jun 1915) George Brown was killed in action, the location is given as British Army Reference Sheet 28.H.5.a.2.9, he is buried in Perth Cemetery (China Wall) Cemetery.
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Pte. Edmund Shirley A Coy. 1st.Btn. East Kent Regiment Ted Shirley signed up in 1914, falsifying his age: he was born in 1898 but registered it as 1896. He spent 1914 and 1915 in Kent, then was sent to France in 1916. He said he first was sent to Armentieres where they had to build up walls as the ground was too wet to dig trenches down into the soil.
He fought on the Somme from 1916 and received a bullet wound in his left arm in September, recovering at a convalescent centre in France I believe, from your records. He talked about seeing early tanks employed on the battlefield for the first time. On one occasion, when he was stuck in no-man's land he watched as a German sniper shot anyone raising their head to see where they were going as they crawled through barbed wire back across British lines: only those who kept their heads down survived, so that was what he did.
In March 1917 he was wounded with a revolver bullet in the right lung and awoke in a German Military Hospital in Lille. He was moved around to a number of camps in 1917, including camps near Limburg an der Lahn, Wittenburg and Dulmen (near Merseburg?). I found this information in Red cross records. He said that prisoners supplemented their diet with nettle soup.
When he was fit he was moved to a Lager further east into Germany and put to work on the railway running between Berlin and Leipzig. He did not remain in the Lager, instead he was imprisoned in an small rural railway station. There were about half a dozen British soldiers and the same numbers of French and Russian prisoners imprisoned there. The Russians were treated very badly. At one time, some of them would get out at night to steal potatoes from a local farm to supplement their poor diet. That was until the farmer started shooting at them one night. It was here that he heard the war was over and refused to work anymore. He was finally repatriated to England in 1919.
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Pte. Horace Richard Hawtree 1st Btn. East Kent Regiment (d.2nd August 1918) Horace Hawtree was born on the 23 August 1890, the youngest of seven children of Edward and Rose Hawtree of 10 Grove Road, Acton, London. By the 1911 census he had moved away from home, he was a waiter at the YMCA at 28 Princes Square in Bayswater and lived there. In May 1914 he appears to have traveled to Philadelphia from Liverpool when he was 24 years old and was described as an engineer.
At some point he returned to the UK as he enlisted on the 15 December 1915 with 1st Battalion East Kent Regiment (The Buffs),Service No. G/12007. He described himself as a fitter living at 21 Talbot Road, Ealing. He married Amy Florence Budden on the 25 April 1917 at St James's Church, West Ealing.
He died on the 2nd of August 1918, aged 28 years and is buried in Esquelbecq Military Cemetery, Northern France. The cemetery was opened in April 1918 during the early stages of the German offensive in Flanders, when the 2nd Canadian and 3rd Australian Casualty Clearing Stations came to Esquelbecq. It was closed in September 1918. It is therefore highly probable that he died from his wounds whilst receiving treatment. He is remembered on the War Memorial, St Mary's Church, Acton, London.
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Pte. Alfred George Spurling 1st Battalion East Kent Regiment (d.15th April 1917) Alfred Spurling enlisted in Ipswich in November 1915 at the age of 37 years and 9 months. He was 5'8" tall, weighed 138 lbs and his chest measurement was 36" with a 2" range of expansion. He was a Private in the 1st Battalion The Buffs East Kent Regiment, an infantry regiment and one of the oldest in the British Army, posted to France on 10th of October 1916.
Alfred was killed in action on 15th of April 1917 and is named on the Loos Memorial which commemorates over 20,000 servicemen who have no known grave.
From his records we know that in 1918 his widow, Rebecca, received her husband's articles of private property consisting of letters, three photos, Testament, steel mirror, wallet with addresses and cutlery. Her pension was 18/9 shillings a week.
Alfred was born in Rushmere in 1878 and by 1891 his family had moved to Tattingstone living near the White Horse. In his early twenties he worked in Spearmans Yard, Ipswich as a cart driver - this was in the St Matthews area of town and was named after a Mr Spearman who had a dye works there. Ten years on and Alfred was back in Tattingstone, married with one son, living on Lemons Hill and working as a gardener. He had married Rebecca Clarke in 1903, she was a dressmaker, from the Wherstead Road area in Ipswich. By the time of her death in 1938 she had moved back to Ipswich to Bramford Lane. Their only son, Alfred Augustus, became a police constable and at the time of his death was living in Middlesex.
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L/Sgt. Percy Marshall Spice 1st Btn. The Buffs (East Kent) Regiment (d.5th March 1916) Percy Marshall Spice was married to Emma Florence Cooper Spice and they lived in 3, Charlemont Row, Harcourt Rd., Dublin. He was wounded in France and Emma went out to see him, as she came home there was a telegraph waiting saying he had died of his wounds. She never married again! I would think that Percy was stationed in Ireland before the war and this is how they met. I heard family stories of how he would collect to go dancing in a posh car. They were in love and her loss lived with her all her life.
I have tried to find out where the 1st Battalion was on the days before he died. He died three days after he was wounded, so he was wounded on 2nd March 1916. I really don't have any more information and would be so grateful for any information you can offer me on the areas the 1st Battalion served during the war.
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Pte. Henry Garner 1st Btn. East Kent Regiment (d.15th September 1916) Henry Garner was my uncle. I only found out about him after my father's death. Henry was born in 1898 and died in 1916 in France. My father was born in January 1917, so never knew his brother and never told me anything about him either. It was during some genealogy research that I found an additional member of the family.
Henry was killed in action and is buried in Guillemont Road Cemetery.
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2nd.Lt. Robert Deacon de Quincy Child 1st Btn. East Kent Regiment My relative's name was Robert Deacon de Quincey Child, a soldier of WW1 in the East Kent Regiment and the RAF who was wounded in my country, France in 1916. He died in 1929
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Pte. Joseph Clark Beedie 1st Battalion East Kent Buffs (d.17th March 1917) Joseph Clark Beedie (son of David Barclay Beedie and Helen Roberts Beedie) is buried at the Maroc British Cemetery Maroc in Grenay, France.
His brother Charles Beedie (7th Btn, Bedfordshire Regt) also died 15th Aug 1917 and is remembered on the Menin Gate.
His nephew William Adison Beedie (Black Watch) was shot in the ankle but survived the war
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Pte. Alfred E. Eveleigh 1st Btn. The Buffs (East Kent Regiment), (d.24th Feb 1916) Pte. Alfred Eveleigh served with The Buffs (East Kent Regiment), 1st Battalion. He was executed for desertion on 24th February 1916, aged 27 and is buried in the White House Cemetery in Belgium.
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Pte. Robert Gawler 1st Btn. East Kent Regiment (d.24th Feb 1916) Robert Gawler was the son of Mr. and Mrs. Gawler, of 10, Staplegate Place, Canterbury. He served with The Buffs (East Kent Regiment), 1st Battalion.
He was executed for desertion on 24th February 1916, aged 29 and is buried in White House Cemetery in Belgium.
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Pte. Allan Edmund Ninnis 1st Battalion East Kent Regiment (d.2nd Aug 1918) Allan Edmund Ninnis served with 1st Bn 'The Buffs' from date of enlistment in 1916 until his death at the age of 38 when returning from patrol on 2nd August 1918 in Scottish Wood, East of Dikkebus. He left a widow and one 5 yr old daughter.
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Sjt. Herbert Walter Hills DCM, MID. 1st Battalion East Kent Regiment (d.31st May 1918) My great great granddad, Herbert Walter Hills, died aged 25 leaving 3 children, one being my grandma Mildred, she never met her father.
It appears Herbert enlisted in the Army at aged 16 on 5th June 1909 and went straight to France. He was awarded the Distinguished Conduct Medal and the 2nd class of the Russian Order of St. George, the order was granted by the late Tsar.
I feel so proud of Herbert in so many ways and it saddens me thinking of him as just a boy fighting in such horrible conditions. I would love to know what he did to obtain his awards. I wear my great grandma's wedding ring and will now wear it with such pride.
Rest in Peace Herbert Walter Hills DCM.MID. "The Buffs"
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