251028 Cpl. Herbert George "Tip" Ruddle British Army 5th Btn. Wiltshire Regiment from:Swindon, Wilts (d.25th January 1917) Herbert Ruddle, or Tip as he was known to friends and family, was born in Swindon, Wilts in 1892. The 1911 census saw him working in South Wales as a coal miner, an odd occupation for the son of a tailor, and given the level of employment at that time in the town.
In 1914 he became engaged to my great aunt, a local Swindon girl, but with the outbreak of the war he soon felt obliged to sign up and by 1915 he found himself heading off to the Dardanelles where he was involved in the ill-fated Gallipoli campaign.
It was not long after the retreat from that theatre of war that the regiment moved down into Mesopotamia and it was there that Tip was killed as the British worked their way down towards Baghdad.
He died on 25th January 1917 without ever seeing again his fiancee. She remained a spinster, to my mind a rather sad and somewhat bitter woman (but who could blame her for what life had thrown at her). On her death the family made a poignant discovery, a full collection of many hundreds of cards and letters sent by Tip to her throughout his time in the Army, from the day he joined up to the eve of his death.
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