Speechless, for once.....

Last weekend was one of those rare genealogical moments when I was struck dumb by the events unfolding in front of me.

I was idly researching a Culpin branch:  Sarah Jane Culpin married William Thomas Pridmore in Thornhaugh, Northants, in 1877 and they moved to Sheffield.  Over the next twenty years or so they begat eleven children (including nine sons), raising all but one to adulthood.  And then came the Great War.

To sidetrack slightly, when I find sons of military age I first look to the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, but I couldn't be sure what I'd found.  So Ancestry helpfully gave me De Ruvigny's Roll of Honour of the Great War and I found a young Pridmore in there......

Topped and tailed in the index by three of his brothers.  And, as if it could get any worse, two of them died within four days of each other.  Speechless is one of the words you could have used to describe me.

John Thomas Pridmore, third son, was born in 1881 and enlisted in the King's Own Yorkshire Light Infantry (KOYLI) in 1899, serving in the Boer War and then with the Expeditionary Force in France in 1914.  Married to Harriet, with whom he had two children, he died on 14 October 1914.

Arthur Edward Pridmore, fourth son, was born in 1883 and followed his brother into the KOYLI, also serving in South Africa and France. He died on 18 October 1914.    Neither brother has a grave, but both are commemorated on the Le Touret Memorial.

Albert Pridmore, second son, was born in 1879.  He was married to Margaret and they had four children.  He enlisted in the Yorks & Lancs  Regiment in 1915 and died in Bradford hospital on 22 June1917 from wounds received in May that year.

George Harry Pridmore, presumably named after his brother George who died in infancy, was the eighth son. Born in 1896 he too joined the KOYLI before the war, enlisting in January 1914.  He served in France in 1916 and then returned to Blighty to train as an officer.  Gazetted as a 2nd Lieutenant in the West Yorks Regt, and by now married to May (nee Foster), he was sent back to France in January 1918.    He died on 31 August 1918.

No more words....