Friday 15 March 2024

Lou Phillips (1878 - 1916) – Welsh Rugby International and golfer

With thanks to John Daniel for finding this information for us 

Lou Phillips was a former Welsh rugby international who also won the Welsh Amateur Golfing Championship in 1907 and 1912


Lewis or Louis Augustus Phillips was born at Stow Hill, in Newport, Monmouthshire, Wales, on 24th February 1878.  His parents were Charles Phillips, a Cornmerchant, and his wife, Rose Phillips, nee Hancock. Lou had the following siblings: John Frederick Phillips, b.1874, Herbert Leonard Phillips, b. 1876 and Charles A. Phillips, b.1881.

Educated at Monmouth Grammar School, Lou went on to become an architect. In 1907 and again in 1912, Lou was Welsh Amateur golf champion. He was also runner-up for the Irish Amateur Open Championship in 1913, and in the following year he was beaten in the sixth round of The Amateur Championship. 

When the First World War started Lou enlisted in the 20th (Service) Battalion of the Royal Fusiliers, and, after refusing a commission, he served as a Sergeant. Posted to France with his unit on 16th  November 1915, on the night of 14th March 1916, while out with a wiring party, Lou was shot through the chest and killed near Cambrin, France. He is buried in Cambrin Churchyard Extension, Grave Reference:  L1 10B.

Note: The 20th Royal Fusiliers was one of four battalions of the regiment raised in 1914 by the Public Schools and University Men’s Force.


Sources: Information supplied by John Daniel, Find my Past, FreeBMD and Wikipedia


Thursday 14 March 2024

Sir John Reeve Brooke (1880-1937) - Staff Captain D.A.A.G. 1915-17, Vice-Chairman of the Electricity Commission, Principal Assistant Secretary, Ministry of Transport 1920-23; Secretary 1923-27

 


With thanks to Rupert Brooke Remembered Facebook Page for finding this information for us

John Reeve Brooke was born in London in 1880 – the birth being registered in the third quarter of that year.  His parents were John Reeve Brooke (1848-1932), a Barrister, and his wife, Charlotte Mary, nee Baldwin-Browne. John Reeve Brooke Senior was the son of the Reverend Richard England Brooke (1821-1900) and the brother of William Parker Brooke (1850-1910), Rupert Brooke’s father – the famous poet Rupert Brooke was seven years younger than his cousin John.    

Young John Reeve Brooke was educated at Haileybury College School in Hertfordshire before going on to study at Corpus Christi College, Oxford University.

On the 1911 Census we find John staying in Surrey and described as a Journalist.  He joined the National Health Insurance Commission in 1912 as secretary (assistant) to its head - Robert Morant - who had been given the unprecedented task of organising the registration and collection of insurance contributions from 15 million people. Morant also had to bring in agreements with doctors to implement a national system of general practitioners. The experience gained by Brooke working on the most ambitious Government project dependent on the collection of personal and other related information to date, would surely have had an impact on his approach to his  work for Fabian Ware.

Major General Sir Fabian Arthur Goulstone Ware, KCVO, KBE, CB, CMG.

During the First World War, Ware was too old to fight so instead he commanded a mobile Red Cross unit on the Western Front.  He was appalled at the number of casualties and his unit began to record all the graves they came across.   In 1915, this initiative was officially recognized by the British Government and was incorporated into the British Army as the “Graves Registration Commission”.

https://fascinatingfactsofww1.blogspot.com/2014/05/the-commonwealth-war-graves-commission.html

John worked with Major General Sir Fabian Ware from the early days of the Mobile Unit.  He joined the Unit on 2nd October 1914 and became the Unit’s Adjutant, or officer in charge of key elements of its personnel and financial administration. His role in the Mobile Unit, as well as recording much of the detail in the early surviving Unit Diaries, was that of administrator and financial manager. For example in a diary entry for Wednesday 16 December 1914 Brooke is recorded as having spent time sorting out longer term arrangements for the finances for the Unit with a Red Cross Official in Boulogne.


In common with the rest of the officers of the Mobile Unit, John was given a so called local rank (a temporary rank in the Army on the Western Front) in late February 1915 (Lieutenant) and then a formal Army commission as Captain at the end of September 1915, slightly ahead of the rest of the Commission with its transfer to the Army in October of that year.

In 1920, John married Dorothy Lamb (1887 – 1967) who worked for various British Government Departments during the First World War. 

John Reeve Brooke was knighted on 16th February 1928 - dubbed at Buckingham Palace. 

He died in 1937.


Original Source:  Post on Rupert Brooke Remembered Facebook Page:

https://www.facebook.com/rupertbrookepoet

Additional information from:

 Find my Past, FreeBMD,

https://warrecordsrevealed.com/2018/04/25/john-reeve-brooke-adjutant-of-the-red-cross-mobile-unit-with-fabian-ware-first-registrar-of-the-graves-registration-commission-and-first-cousin-of-rupert-brooke/

Obituary in the “Hampstead News” of 08 April 1937

Sir John Reeve Brooke (1880-1937)

Find a Grave https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/44681529/john-reeve-brooke

https://www.abdn.ac.uk/sll/disciplines/english/lion/ceremony.shtml


https://www.brown.edu/Research/Breaking_Ground/results.php?d=1&first=Dorothy&last=Lamb


Wednesday 13 March 2024

Jack Warner, OBE (1895 - 1981) - British actor

 Jack Warner, OBE (born Horace John Waters; 24 October 1895 – 24 May 1981) was a British actor. He is closely associated with the role of PC George Dixon, which he played in the 1950 film The Blue Lamp and later in the television series Dixon of Dock Green from 1955 until 1976, but he was also for some years one of Britain's most popular film stars. 


Born Horace John Waters in Bromley-by-Bow, Poplar, London, UK on 24th October 1895, his parents were Edward William Waters, a master fulling maker and undertaker's warehouseman, and his wife, Maud Mary, nee Best.  Jack's sisters, Elsie and Doris Waters, became comediennes who usually performed as "Gert and Daisy”.

Educated at the Coopers' Company's Grammar School for Boys in Mile End, Jack went on to study automobile engineering at the Northampton Institute (now part of the City University, London) but being more practical than academic he left after a year to work at the repair facilities of F.W. Berwick and Company in Balham.

During the First World War, Jack served in France as a driver in the Royal Flying Corps and was awarded the Meritorious Service Medal in 1918. He returned to England and the motor trade in 1919, driving hearses and occasionally racing cars at Brooklands, where he maintained and sometimes raced Henrietta Lister's Aston Martin. 

Jack became a professional entertainer in music hall and in radio shows. In 1933, Jack married company secretary Muriel Winifred ("Mollie"), daughter of independently wealthy Roberts Peters


By the early years of the Second World War, Jack had become nationally known and starred in a BBC radio comedy show.  He died in 1981 and his role of Dixon of Dock Green in the television series was held in such high esteem that officers from Paddington Green Police Station bore the coffin at his funeral.


Friday 8 March 2024

Jack Benny (1894 – 1974) – American entertainer

Born Benjamin Kubelsky on 14th February 1894 in Chicago, he was the son of Meyer Kubelsky (1864–1946), who was from Poland, and his wife Emma Sachs Kubelsky (1869–1917), who was from Lithuania.  The family lived in Waukegan, an industrial suburb of Chicago, Illinois, USA.  Benny began studying the violin when he was six years old.  

However, he was a dreamer and poor at his school studies, and was expelled from high school.   In 1911, he began playing the violin in local vaudeville theaters.

Benny left show business briefly in 1917 to join the United States Navy during World War I, often entertaining fellow sailors with his violin playing. One evening, his violin performance was booed by the sailors, so with prompting from fellow sailor and actor Pat O'Brien, he ad-libbed his way out of the jam and left them laughing. He received more comedy spots in the revues and did well, earning a reputation as a comedian and musician.

HJack Benny's radio and television programmes, popular from 1932 until his death in 1974, were a major influence on the sitcom genre. Benny often portrayed his character as a miser who played his violin badly and ridiculously claimed to be 39 years of age, regardless of his actual age.

Jack Benny died on 26th December 1974. 

George Burns (1896 – 1996) – American comedian, actor, writer, and singer,

Born Nathan Birnbaum on 20th January 1896, in New York City, he was the ninth of 12 children born to Hadassah "Dorah" (née Bluth; 1857–1927) and Eliezer Birnbaum (1855–1903), known as Louis or Lippa.  

Drafted into the United States Army when the United States of America entered the First World War in 1917, he failed the physical examination because he was extremely nearsighted. By the early 1920s, he adopted the stage name "George Burns".

He met actress Gracie Allen in 1922 and they first performed together at the Hill Street Theatre in Newark, New Jersey, continued in small town vaudeville theaters and were married in Cleveland on 7th January 1926,

George Burns was one of the few entertainers whose careers successfully spanned vaudeville, radio, film and television.  

After a long and very successful career, George died on 9th March 1996.

Friday 23 February 2024

Sir Arthur Frederick Blakiston, 7th Baronet, MC (1892 - 1974) - International Rugby Union player and WW1 soldier

With grateful thanks to John Daniel for spotting the plaque at the Northampton Saints Rugby Club open day, taking a photograph and researching Sir Arthur for us. 


Arthur Frederick Blakiston, known as “Freddie”, was born on 16th June 1892 in West Derby, Lancashire, a suburb of Liverpool.  His parents were Frederick Turnly Blakiston and his wife Eleanor Isabella, nee Fitzgerald.

Arthur was initially educated at Bedford School and joined Trent College in March 1903. Before leaving school in 1908, he had served as a School Monitor and Librarian and had proved to be an excellent sportsman. He went on to study at Emmanuel College, Cambridge. 

Arthur served during the First World War in the King Edward’s Horse Regiment, then as an officer in the Royal Field Artillery. He was awarded the Military Cross in September 1918 when an ammunition column under his command came under fire in Belgium. Despite being under constant shelling, Arthur rescued wounded men and managed to deliver ammunition to the front line.

After the war Arthur worked as a schoolmaster at the Grammar School in Northampton.

As a rugby union international wing, Arthur represented England twelve times between 1920 and 1925, and the British Lions in all four test matches during their 1924 tour of South Africa. He played as a Lock/Flanker for: Bedford School, Trent College, Cambridge University, Northampton, Liverpool, Blackheath, Barbarians, East Midlands, Lancashire and Surrey. Freddie Blakiston was one of the greatest forwards Northampton Saints ever produced.

Arthur inherited his title, becoming Sir Arthur Frederick Blakston, Seventh Baronet in 1941 and died in Salisbury, Witshire on 31st January 1974.

Since 2018, Nothampton Saints’ playing squad takes part in an annual pre-season challenge in Blakiston’s honour – which has so far been won by Dan Biggar, Reuben Bird-Tulloch, Piers Francis and Alex Coles (twice).


Sources:  Information supplied by John Daniel, Find my Past, FreeBMD, 

https://www.northamptonsaints.co.uk/person/freddie-blakiston

http://www.militarian.com/threads/arthur-blakiston-rugby-player.8018/



Morgan Maddox Morgan-Owen, DSO (1877 – 1950) - Wales football international and captain - WW1 soldier

With thanks to John Daniel for finding this information for us 

Morgan was born on 26th February 1877 in Cardiff, Wales. His parents were Timothy Morgan Owen, a Schools Inspector, and his wife, Emma Owen, nee Maddox.  Educated at Shrewsbury School, Morgan went on to become a teacher.  In 1901 he was working as an Assistant Master at Forest School in Walthamstow, London.  

Forest School officially opened as Forest Proprietary Grammar School on 1st  October 1834.  

Morgan Maddox Morgan-Owen was described as the best Centre Half of his time in the world. He captained Wales in their first win against Scotland on Scottish soil in 1906 and Corinthians FC, the famous London based amateur side, when they inflicted on Manchester United, their heaviest ever defeat, 11-3 in 1904.  Morgan also captained the Corinthians on many overseas trips. One in particular to Brazil in 1908, inspired the formation of one of Brazil's most famous clubs, Sport Club Corinthians Paulista, FIFA Club World Cup winners in 2000 and 2012.

On the 1911 we Census find Morgan listed with his brother Hugh in Repton, Derbyshire, where he was an Assistant Schoolmaster at Repton School.  Hugh’s occupation was described as Colonial Civil Service in Nigeria

Morgan enlisted four days after the declaration of the First World War and fought at Gallipoli, where he was wounded, and at Passchendaele on the Western Front. He initially joined the 1/4 Batallion of the Essex Regiment, was attached to 11th (Service) Battalion, The Rifle Brigade 12/12/16, and made Temporary Lieutenant-Colonel and attached as CO to 10th (Service) Battalion, The Rifle Brigade 01/12/17.  Morgan relinquished his Temporary rank and re-attached to 11th (Service) Battalion 03/02/18.  Although he entered the war as a Captain, due to the fact that so many officers were killed in action, Morgan became a Lieutenant-Colonel within weeks and was awarded the Distinguished Service Order in 1918.

After the War, Morgan married Doris Marjorie Turner on 19th August 1925.  The 1939 Census finds Morgan and his wife living in Repton, with Morgan’s occupation described as Retired House Master.   He died in Derbyshire in 1950.

Sources:  John Daniel, Find my Past, FreeBMD, Wikipedia,

https://www.footballandthefirstworldwar.org/morgan-morgan-owen-service-record/