Charles Frederick Ball new biography by Brian Willan – Kew Gardens, Glasnevin, Dublin and Gallipoli WW1

 

A new biography of Charles Frederick Ball, gardener at Kew Gardens and Glasnevin (Dublin Botanic Gardens) has just been published by Brian Willan of Devon, who kindly sent me a copy of this book.

Leicester born C.F. Ball or ‘Fred’ enlisted in The Royal Dublin Fusiliers and was killed at Gallipoli in 1915 during WW1.

Pictured in uniform in Garden Illustrated magazine 1915

Private Charles Frederick Ball, service number 16445, 7th Battalion, Royal Dublin Fusiliers (Pals Battalion), died at Gallipoli on 13/09/1915, aged 36.

C.F. Ball  featured on our Kew in WW1 blog post, amongst  the many names on  staff war memorial at Kew Gardens and remembered in the  plant variety name of  the popular and colourful Escallonia ‘C.F. Ball’.

https://worldwarzoogardener1939.wordpress.com/2013/07/19/such-is-the-price-of-empire-the-lost-gardeners-of-kew-in-the-first-world-war/

Not every gardener named on the Kew Gardens staff war memorial (C.F. Ball’s entry, above) gets a full and well illustrated biography like this, although many of them received a short obituary notice in the Kew Guild Journal.   

https://worldwarzoogardener1939.wordpress.com/2015/09/13/remembering-c-f-ball-of-kew-glasnevin-killed-gallipoli-13-september-1915/

The story of Fred Ball will have to stand in for many less fortunate names of his generation. 

 

This interesting well illustrated book is based on family letters and photographs recently discovered in 2018 and inherited by Brian Willan, who is grandson by marriage of C.F. Ball’s widow Alice.   

It is published by the Liffey Press  www.theliffeypress.com   and should be available (to order)  in all good bookshops. 

https://theliffeypress.com/charles-frederick-ball-from-dublin-s-botanic-gardens-to-the-killing-fields-of-gallipoli-by-brian-willan.html

I will write a fuller review when I have finished reading this fascinating book.

Blog post by Mark Norris, Newquay Zoo – World War Zoo gardens research project occasional blog post 15 July 2022 

Remembering Henry Sidney Cockcroft of Kew Gardens staff died of illness WW1 on 11 December 1919

Over a year after the First World War ended 100 years ago, Kew Gardens and many other workplaces such as zoos were still losing their staff to the ‘war service’ related deaths.

Harry or Henry Sydney Cockcroft, 11 December 1919

Lance Corporal Harry Sydney Cockcroft P/14540, Corps of Military Police Home Command.

Mr. Cockcroft is listed on the Kew Memorial as ‘Military Foot Police’. Elsewhere he is listed as Royal Fusiliers. He is listed as a Present Kewite in 1914/15 under the section “Gangers, labourers and boys”.

He died of sickness or illness , aged 35 on 11 December 1919 and has a CWGC grave record here:

https://www.cwgc.org/find-war-dead/casualty/401928/cockroft,-henry-sidney 

Several spellings of his name including Sidney exist.
In the Kew Guild Journal 1920, p.482, the article on the War Memorial mentions that “Two additional names have to be added to the Tablet. Pte. Albert Wright and L.Cpl. Sidney Cockcroft.”

CWGC image of Richmond Cemetery where Kew Gardens’ Sidney Cockcroft is buried.

Several Kew staff are buried in Richmond Cemetery, including in the military section, not so far from the Royal Botanic Gardens Kew.

Sidney is listed as “The son of Mr. & Mrs. Anne Cockcroft of Walthamstow, and husband of Mrs. Mabel Cockcroft of 84 (?the) Green, Kew”. He is buried in Richmond Cemetery and commemorated on the Richmond War Memorial, Surrey.

You can read more about the Lost Gardeners of Kew Gardens in WW1 on my blogpost here:

https://worldwarzoogardener1939.wordpress.com/2013/07/19/such-is-the-price-of-empire-the-lost-gardeners-of-kew-in-the-first-world-war/

and Lost Gardeners of Kew Gardens in  WW2 here:

https://worldwarzoogardener1939.wordpress.com/2013/04/06/the-lost-gardeners-of-kew-in-world-war-two/

Blog posted by Mark Norris, World War Zoo Gardens research project blog 100 years on from Harry Sidney Cockcroft’s death 11 December 1919 / 2019

 

 

Remembering E.H. Robson, Kew Gardens Coventry Parks Department died 23 October 1944 Italy WW2

 Captain E H Robson’s name on the Kew Gardens staff war memorial WW2 section

E.H. Robson, gardener, died 23 October 1944, Italy.

Born in 1912, Edward Herbert Robson entered Kew Gardens for training in 1935 after working in private estate gardens and became foreman in the Temperate House at Kew  until 1938 when he moved to work in the parks of Coventry.

He had already joined the Royal Berkshire Regiment in October 1940 by the time Coventry was bombed in late 1940 and 1941.

Autumn  1944 was a bad year for the Robson family. His brother Major John Elliott Robson of the same regiment was also killed in Italy on 7th October 1944 and a third brother was injured and taken prisoner at Arnhem.

His Kew Guild Journal 1946 obituary notes him as collecting and sending back plants and seeds throughout his service in Palestine, Egypt and Italy.

CWGC records list him as Captain ROBSON, EDWARD HERBERT
Service Number 203877
Died 23/10/1944, Aged 32
Royal Berkshire Regiment (attd. 5th Battalion. Queen’s Own Royal West Kent Regiment)
Mentioned in Despatches
“Son of Reginald Herbert and Mary Eliott Robson, of Bloomsbury, London. His brother John Eliott Robson also fell.”

Service headstone inscription chosen by family-
DEAR SON OF REGINALD H. AND MARY E.ROBSON

https://www.cwgc.org/find-war-dead/casualty/2379343/robson,-edward-herbert/

His grave is now in Florence War Cemetery in Italy.

https://www.cwgc.org/find-a-cemetery/cemetery/2036800/florence-war-cemetery/

Edward Robson and family, and the lost gardeners of Kew, remembered 75 years on on 23 October 2019.  

Blog posted by Mark Norris, World War Zoo Gardens project, Newquay Zoo, 23 October 2019.

Remembering Georges Henri Larsen Kew Gardens exchange student died 13 September 1944 75 years ago

 

G.H.Larsen 13 September 1944

Born November 25 1914 in France, Georges Henri Larsen came to Kew on exchange from the Luxemburg Gardens, Paris 1935-36.

Georges Larsen died serving with Corps Franc d’Afrique and Free French forces in Normandy,  killed in the fighting at Epinal in 1944. 

Remembered 75 years on at the Kew Gardens Staff War Memorial.

Larsen is one of the many casualties of zoos and botanic gardens that we have been researching since 2009 as part of The World War Zoo Gardens project on how zoos and botanic gardens were affected by wartime challenges.

https://worldwarzoogardener1939.wordpress.com/2013/04/06/the-lost-gardeners-of-kew-in-world-war-two/

Blog posted by Mark Norris, World War Zoo Gardens Project, Newquay Zoo  September 1944 / 2019.

Remembering Cecil George Last of Kew Gardens died Italy WW2 22 June 1944

C.G. Last, 22 June 1944 MM, Military Medal
Corporal 9900V, Cecil George Last served with the South African Medical Corps, attached First City / Cape Town Highlanders, South African Forces.  Cecil died aged 36 and is buried at Assisi War Cemetery, Italy.

He is remembered on the Kew Gardens staff war memorial WW2 section.

Assisi CWGC War Cemetery, Italy (Image source: CWGC)

 

Assisi War Cemetery  is mostly made up of burials from June to July 1944 from battles with the Germans who were trying to stop the Allied advance north of Rome.

Born October 12, 1910,  he was the son of William G. and Beatrice Last of Letchworth, Hertfordshire.
His Kew Guild obituary notes that he was killed at Chiusi in Italy whilst attempting “under heavy shell fire … to bring to safety one of his native stretcher bearers who was wounded and exposed to heavy fire.”

He was previously noted for gallantry and awarded the Military Medal whilst wounded in the Desert campaign. He served as a medic with the South African Highlanders until after El Alamein.

Cecil was one of several Kew Gardens staff killed in the fighting in Italy in WW2 in 1944. You can read more about the lost gardeners of Kew in WW2:

https://worldwarzoogardener1939.wordpress.com/2013/04/06/the-lost-gardeners-of-kew-in-world-war-two/

Cecil George Last of Kew Gardens, died 22 June 1944 WW2 – remembered 75 years on. 

Blog posted by Mark Norris, World War Zoo gardens project, Newquay Zoo, 22 June 1944 / 2019. 

Remembering J. G. ‘Jack’ Mayne 16th May and the Kew Gardens casualties of 1944

Kew Gardens Staff War memorial WW2 section – Jack Mayne’s panel / entry, along with fellow 1944 casualties Sutch and Thyer. 

Remembering Jack Mayne  (J.G. Mayne) of Kew Gardens killed on active service in Italy on 16 May 1944 

Image Source / Copyright: TWGPP / Steve Rogers 

Jack Mayne is one of 14 Kew trained gardeners and staff remembered on the Kew Gardens staff war memorial WW2 panels.

Kew Gardens Staff war memorial (Kew website)

J.G. Mayne, 16 May 1944
Lieutenant, 48th Highlanders of Canada, Royal Canadian Infantry Corps.
Buried at the Cassino War Cemetery, Rome.

Monte Cassino loom over the Monte Cassino Cemetery where Jack Mayne, Kew Trained Gardener lies buried. Photo: TWGPP / Steve Rogers 

Monte Cassino was finally captured from the Germans two days after Mayne’s death.

Born on January 1st 1914, ‘Jack’ was the son of Robert Furlong Mayne and Kathleen Mayne. He attended Kew from 1938 to 1939 before leaving for an exchange post at the Ontario Agricultural College in Canada.  He married Mary (Mayne) of  Frimley, Surrey in England in 1943 and his only daughter was born after his death.

Jack Mayne’s headstone is located  amongst this  a stone sea of Canadian headstones tells its own story about the hard-won victory at Cassino, 1944. 

Jack Mayne was one of several Kew trained gardeners killed in 1944, most of them like him killed in the Italian Campaign. Others died following D-Day in June 1944.

The dates, regiments  and cemeteries or death places on the Kew Gardens Staff War Memorial in WW2 is a miniature war atlas or history timeline of the events and campaigns of WW2. 

P.E.or R.E. Thyer, 17 June 1944
Lance Corporal 589614V, Royal Natal Carabineers, South African Forces, Bolsena War Cemetery, Italy.

Born July 5 1911, Percy Ernest Thyer he was the son of William H. and Kate Thyer, Glastonbury, Somerset. (Listed on the cwgc.org.uk site as R.E. Thyer and in the Kew Guild Journal as P.E. Thyer). Thyer was at Kew between 1936 and 1937. He transferred to South Africa as an Exchange student at Government House Gardens, Pretoria in 1937 until he enlisted in 1943 after part-time service whilst still employed as a gardener. Thyer died aged 32, in action at Belvedere Farm, Citta d’Pieve, Italy. Many of the burials in this cemetery are related to a tank battle between the 6th South African Battalion and the Hermann Goering Panzer Division in Italy.

C.G. Last, 22 June 1944 MM, Military Medal
Died aged 36, Corporal 9900V, Cecil George Last served with the South African Medical Corps, attached First City / Cape Town Highlanders, South African Forces, buried at Assisi War Cemetery, Italy. This is mostly burials from June – July 1944 from battles with the Germans who were trying to stop the Allied advance north of Rome.

Born October 12, 1910 he was the son of William G and Beatrice Last of Letchworth, Hertfordshire.
His Kew Guild obituary notes that he was killed at Chiusi in Italy whilst attempting “under heavy shell fire … to bring to safety one of his native stretcher bearers who was wounded and exposed to heavy fire.” He was previously noted for gallantry and awarded the Military Medal whilst wounded in the Desert campaign. He served as a medic with the South African Highlanders until after El Alamein.

E.H. Robson, died 23 October 1944, Italy 

Born in 1912, Edward Herbert Robson entered Kew in 1935 after working in private estate gardens and became foreman in the Temperate House until 1938 when he moved to work in the parks of Coventry. He had already joined the Royal Berkshire Regiment in October 1940 by the time Coventry was bombed in late 1940 and 1941. 1944 was a bad year for the Mayne family – his brother Major John Elliott Robson of the same regiment was also killed in Italy on 7th October 1944 and a third brother was injured and taken prisoner at Arnhem. His Kew Guild Journal 1946 obituary notes him as collecting and sending back plants and seeds throughout his service in Palestine, Egypt and Italy. His grave is in Florence War Cemetery in Italy.

D-Day and its aftermath 1944 also affected Kew Gardens staff

J.W. Sutch, 8 August 1944
Royal Armoured Corps, Trooper, 1st Northants Yeomanry. John Wilfred Sutch was born on November 8 1923 and served at Kew as a “Gardens boy” from 1939-1942. He is buried in the Banneville La Campagne war cemetery, Calvados, France. Sutch was a tank driver and died during the battle for the Falaise Gap in the Normandy campaign after D-Day.

G.H.Larsen 13 September 1944
Born November 25 1914 in France, Georges Henri Larsen came to Kew on exchange from the Luxemburg Gardens, Paris 1935-36. Serving with Corps Franc d’Afrique and Free French forces in Normandy, Larsen was killed in the fighting at Epinal.

You can read more about the Kew Gardeners lost in WW2 here 

https://worldwarzoogardener1939.wordpress.com/2013/04/06/the-lost-gardeners-of-kew-in-world-war-two/

Jack Mayne and the Kew Gardeners of WW2 – Remembered 

Blogposted 75 years on 16 May 1944 / 2019 by Mark Norris, World War Zoo Gardens project.

Remembering Ernest Joseph Hiskins Melbourne Botanic Gardens RAAF died 15 April 1944 WW2

 

RBG Melbourne staff memorial tree plaque (Photo by Graham Saunders via Monuments Australia website)

Remembering Flight Sergeant Ernest John Hiskins of the Royal Australian Air Force who died 75 years ago on 15 April 1944, formerly staff of the Melbourne Botanic Gardens, where he is commemorated on their staff memorial tree. 

His RAAF records list him as a Botanist and we know he worked at the Melbourne Botanic Gardens as he is listed alongside A.W.  Bugg, a WW1 casualty on the tree plaque.

This memorial Lophosternum or Brush Box tree was planted on 10 September 1945

Royal Botanic Gardens Melbourne staff memorialLophosternum or Brush Box  tree (Photo by Graham Saunders via Monuments Australia 

His CWGC records list him as Flight Sergeant Ernest Joseph Hiskins, Royal Australian Air Force, 410058, who died on active service against the Japanese on the 15th April 1944.

He is remembered on Panel 9 of the Northern Territory Memorial, alongside his pilot H.S. Ashbolt. He is listed as the son of Ernest Barton Hiskins and Alice Mary Hiskins, of Brunswick, Victoria, Australia.

Hiskins and his crew member RAAF pilot Ashbolt are remembered on the Northern Territory Memorial, Australia (Image CWGC website)

Hiskins and Ashbolt flew Bristol Beaufighters with 31 Sqaudron RAAF / RAF. There is much about  31 Squadron on the Australian War memorial website, including photographs.

It mentions that No. 31 Squadron, based at Coomalie Creek (near Darwin, Australia), flew ground attack sorties against the Japanese in Timor and the Netherlands East Indies, as well as anti-shipping patrols and convoy protection missions.

On 15 April 1944, there is an entry:
“Damaged by Japanese Anti Aircraft Fire which knocked out starboard engine. After flying for 20 minutes on port engine, aircraft lost height and crashed into the Timor Sea.”
The crew Pilot Flight Sergeant H.S.Ashbolt, and Navigator Flight Sergeant E.J. Hiskins were in action as part of formation of 31 Squadron Beaufighters attacking Japanese positions at Soe village in Timor.

According to his ADF Gallery / RAAF file, his Beaufighter developed a starboard engine oil leak from Japanese anti aircraft fire:
“the aircraft was seen to lose speed and height and strike the water 60 nautical miles off the South Coast of Timor. The only wreckage was part of a fin, wing, dinghy and three fuel tanks. There was no sign of the crew.”

The original photograph and now vanished 1996 web page for the Royal Botanic Gardens, Melbourne.

His RAAF air force records list him as a graduate of a Crown Horticulture Scholarship at Burnley Horticulture School (still open today) in 1937-39 and working at Lands Department (State) Treasury Gardens Melbourne.

Sadly Ernest’s brother Wireless Officer K.J. Hiskins was also killed flying in Wellington bombers with 70 Squadron RAF on 26 June 1944. He is buried in Budapest Cemetery.

You can read more about both these two WW1 and WW2 Melbourne Botanic Gardens casualties:

https://worldwarzoogardener1939.wordpress.com/2015/02/02/buggs-life-and-death-royal-botanic-gardens-melbourne-staff-memorial-tree/

Posted on the 75th anniversary of Ernest Hiskins and pilot  H.S. Ashbolt’s deaths – 15 April 1944 / 2019 – Remembered. 

Blog posted by Mark Norris, World War Zoo Gardens project, 15 April 2019

Post script – I will put a link and details onto this online memorial

https://vwma.org.au/explore/people/47094

 

Food, allotments and rationing in WW1

Interesting WW1 centenary legacy from Richmond in London with this snippet about wartime gardening and rationing in WW1. An attractive website worth looking at.

https://richmondww1.orleanshousegallery.org/food-and-drink

Posted by Mark Norris, World War Zoo Gardens, 27 March 2019

Remembering Albert Wright of Kew and Birmingham Botanic Gardens died WW1 25 February 1919

Albert Wright of Birmingham and Kew Botanic Gardens Remembered on the WW1 section Kew Gardens staff memorial (Image Source: Mark Norris, World War Zoo gardens project, Newquay Zoo)

Remembering Albert Wright, Gardener of Kew and Birmingham Botanic Gardens who  died from pneumonia in hospital as a result of the effects of service with the 2/7th Royal Warwickshire Regiment in WW1 on 25 February 1919.

https://worldwarzoogardener1939.wordpress.com/2013/07/19/such-is-the-price-of-empire-the-lost-gardeners-of-kew-in-the-first-world-war/

Private Albert Wright, 201656, 2nd /7th Battalion, Royal Warwickshire Regiment, died on 25 February 1919, aged 29. He is remembered at Grave Reference Screen Wall B10. 9. 661A, Birmingham Lodge Hill Cemetery, presumably where he is buried. 

Birmingham Lodge Cemetery and Screen Wall where Wright’s name is recorded.

He has no individual headstone. A photograph of his screen wall entry is on the TWGPP website. The cemetery contains 498 First World War burials, most of them in a war graves plot alongside Wright in Section B10. The  screen wall panels of names are linked to numbered stone panels in the ground in front of the cross.

Wright’s name on the screen wall Source image: TWGPP

Born in Birmingham, Albert Wright worked at Birmingham Botanic Gardens as an Outdoor Foreman from April 1914 to February 1916, leaving Kew Gardens where he studied from May 1912 to April 1914 (being there an Assistant 1st Class).

Birmingham Botanic Gardens, 2010 (photographed during my last visit)

His Kew Guild Journal obituary 1920/21 lists him as joining the 5th Warwickshire Regiment, moving with them to France in May 1917.

In 1917 he was invalided home with fever before returning to France where he was wounded in the leg whilst wiring out in front of the trenches. Sent to hospitals in Glasgow, Irvine and finally Liverpool, he died of influenza and pneumonia in hospital, three months after the war ended.

In the Kew Guild Journal 1920, p.482, the article on the Kew War Memorial mentions that “Two additional names have to be added to the Tablet. Pte. Albert Wright and L.Cpl. Sidney Cockcroft.”

Wright is also remembered in the unusual round Hall Of Memory of all those Birmingham citizens lost as civilians or service people since 1914. http://www.hallofmemory.co.uk/remembrance.php

The First World War saw four important hospitals, besides many smaller ones, located at Birmingham with over 7000 beds. It appears that Albert died of wounds or ill health back in his home city, hopefully amongst family.

Albert Wright is the last named Kew Gardener on the staff war memorial but by no means the last Kew man to die as a result of WW1. As far as we can tell, several more of the Kew staff died from the effects of war service after Albert Wright in 1919.

Postscript

It has been a few months since my last Centenary Memorial Blog Post and there has been thankfully a pause, reflecting the end of fighting, although war wounds and Spanish influenza continued to claim victims well after November 1918.

It has been over ten years since I visited Birmingham Botanic Gardens where Albert Wright  worked, whilst working for Newquay Zoo during National Science Week in Birmingham. I spent a spare day at the Gardens and time in the City Library Local Records  researching through the Birmingham Botanic Garden Archive records  to see how the Gardens survived wartime challenges.

February 1944 Kew Gardens during the Little Blitz on London

Kew Guild Journal 1945/6

This short Kew Guild Journal article shows the problems faced when  zoos and botanic gardens suffered raid damage in this case in the Little Blitz on London of February 23 and 24th 1944.

A lot of broken glass, wrecked trees or buildings and subsequent heating problems, with very few materials available to repair the damage.

Posted on the 75th anniversary of the Little Blitz by Mark Norris, World War Zoo gardens, Newquay Zoo.