Edwin James Holmes Sergeant 7335 - 2nd Bn South Staffordshire Regiment Killed in action on Sunday 20th September 1914. Buried in Chauny Communal Cemetery, Aisne, France Edwin James Holmes was born in Albrighton in early 1889, to 26-year-old Edwin Holmes from Condover and his wife Ellen, (maiden name unknown), from Buttington, Montgomeryshire (1863). Edwin Holmes senior may be the boy of that name who, after the death of his mother and step-mother, became a pauper inmate in Berrington Workhouse along with two half-siblings. The 1891 census has Edwin senior working as a baker in Albrighton High Street, with his wife Ellen and children Jessie 6, Eaton David 4, James E[dwin] 2, and baby John H. The family is hard to find thereafter, although Eaton was working as a servant in 1901, and in 1903 said his father Edwin Holmes was in Albrighton. Eaton, whose damaged service records are available online, joined the army at Albrighton in 1903 at the age of 18 (5’ 4¾”, brown hair and eyes). He gave as Next of Kin his father Edwin, Donnington Lane, Albrighton and brother Edwin James. He also refers to younger brothers Henry and George. It seems that Edwin James also joined up well before the war, as in 1911 aged 24 he was at Whittington Barracks, 6 Regimental District, Lichfield with the 2 nd  Battalion South Staffordshire Regiment. On 17 Nov 1913 Edwin James married Edith Hannah Beech at Gnosall, with his siblings Jessie Ellen Holmes and Eaton Holmes as witnesses. Edwin was then a corporal, living in Gnosall, and he described his father as a farm labourer. Edith Hannah had been christened on 28 September 1890 at Gnosall. Her parents being Thomas and Hannah Beech of Crow’s Nest. Her father was a labourer. As Sergeant 7335 Edwin was part of the British Expeditionary Force. The Battalion disembarked on 12 th  August 1914 (eight days after war had been declared) and he died just over a month later. He was killed in action at Aisne on 20th September 1914 and was awarded the “Mons Star” with Clasp 2/2878, and the Victory and British medals. His brother Eaton also went to France with the B.E.F. on 12 th  August, but survived through several regiments to receive his three medals and clasp and lived until 1958 in Halifax. On 24 May 1915 at Gnosall Edwin’s widow Edith Hannah married William Herbert Kibble, a platelayer living at Hollies Cottage. She signed the memorial register for Edwin as “Edith Hannah Kibble (formerly Holmes) of Council Houses, Befcote, Gnosall.” Edwin Holmes is buried in Chauny Communal Cemetery, Aisne, Picardie, France, Plot 5.J.12 Historical Information The Extension was made after the Armistice for the burial of remains brought in from the battlefields of the Aisne and from the following smaller cemeteries in the surrounding countryside. There are just over 1,000, 1914-18 war casualties commemorated in this site. The majority of them died in 1918; most of the rest died in September, 1914. Included the total figure are 6 soldiers of the United Kingdom whose identity had been established with reasonable, but not absolute certainty and who are commemorated by special memorial headstones bearing the superscription 'Believed to be', and 26 soldiers of the United Kingdom and 5 of Canada whose graves could be identified collectively but not individually and who are commemorated by special memorial headstones bearing the superscription 'Buried near this spot'. There are also 26 soldiers of the United Kingdom who are commemorated in the cemetery as follows: 22 who were buried at the time in MENNESSIS and PREMONTRE Communal cemeteries and in the former German cemeteries at Crecy-sur-Serre, Villequier-Aumont, Versigny, Couchy-le-Chateau, Fourdrain and Suzy and whose graves are lost are commemorated by special memorial headstones inscribed to that effect, with the additional inscription 'Their glory shall not be blotted out'; 3 are commemorated by special memorial headstones bearing the superscription 'Believed to be buried in this cemetery'; and one, whose grave is known to be in the cemetery although the exact place of burial could not be established, is commemorated by a special memorial headstone inscribed 'Buried in this cemetery'.
Chauny Communal Cemetery, Aisne, France..