IN May 1915, twenty or so young women from Clevedon took an excursion to Tidworth in Wiltshire.
Their trip was not without purpose, for it is no coincidence that men from the 56th Infantry Brigade had moved to Tidworth to complete their military training having spent three months in Clevedon from January of that year.
It is very likely one of the day-trippers was Rhoda Cooper of Old Street. After a whirlwind romance, Rhoda had married private John Stainton of the 7th King's Own, Royal Lancaster Regiment just a few weeks before. Sadly, as it will become apparent, Rhoda's new-found happiness was to be short-lived.
The 56th Infantry Brigade was raised in August 1914, shortly after the outbreak of the First World War. Its four Battalions - each about 800 strong - were composed of 'Kitchener' volunteers from Lancashire and the north of England.
Given the population of Clevedon was approximately 6,000 in 1915, the arrival of almost 4,000 Lancashire lads in the town will have made quite an impact. The Brigade HQ was set up at No.2 Bellevue Terrace - until recently a HSBC bank.
The HQs were all within a short walking distance from this main hub - the 8th East Lancs at St Gabriel's Convent on Marine Hill, the 7th South Lancs at 'Caer Leon' in Princes Road, the 7th North Lancs at Duncan House on Chapel Hill and the 7th King's Own Royal Lancaster Regiment at 'Hawkesbury' in Linden Road (all of these properties still stand, albeit some have different names now). The men were billeted in households across the town; often four or five in a single property.
When the Brigade departed Clevedon by train for Tidworth Camp and then onwards to the Western Front, the town must have seemed very quiet. Happily, the Brigade's departure was captured on a Pathe News film which has been digitised by the Archive team at the Imperial War Museum and is available online.
One of the Lancashire lads remains in Clevedon - Rhoda Cooper's husband John Stainton who is buried in the consecrated ground at St Andrews Church in the shadow of a Commonwealth War Graves Commission headstone - albeit mysteriously showing the initial T instead of J.
John Stainton was born in Ambleside Westmoreland and enlisted in the Royal Lancaster Regiment at Barrow-in-Furness in 1914. Private Stainton's service record shows he had served in the 2nd Battalion of the same regiment during the Second Boer War and had seen action at the Battle of Spion Kop in 1900. It seems that Private Stainton was a bit of a rogue.
He died in August 1916 by which time his regiment had been overseas for more than a year. So why is he buried in Clevedon?
The answer, of course, lies in his love for Rhoda Cooper in that Stainton's mother was insistent that her son should lie in the town where he had married fourteen months previously.
After completing training at Tidworth the 56th Brigade was transported to France. The Brigade's War Diary records that 'Clevedon's Own Lancashire Lads' were active on the Western Front from July 1915.
The Brigade saw some involvement in a diversionary action during the Battle of Loos in September 1915 but the real baptism of fire came on July 4, 1916 when the 19th Division were asked to take the strongpoint of La Boisselle. The 34th Division had failed to take the town three days prior and sustained massive losses.
John Stainton suffered a fatal wound a couple of months later. The Somme Battle had developed slowly and by the end of July, the battalions of the 56th Brigade were rotating in and out of the lines near High Wood. Like the majority of First World war battlefield casualties, Stainton was hit by the burst of an artillery shell which left him wounded in the shoulder, face and thigh.
He was treated in a Casualty Clearing Station and was then transferred to a base hospital on the coast before being repatriated to the English General Hospital in Cambridge.
John succumbed to his wounds in August 1916, and now lies to the north west of St Andrew's Church. A poignant reminder of the lads from Lancashire who spent three months in the town readying themselves for their participation in what was then known as the Great War.
Phil Curme writes on his blog walkingthebattlefields.co.uk.
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