THE GREAT WAR MEMORIAL OF CHRIST CHURCH, SURBITON HILL, KT5 8JJ. BEHIND THE NAMES.

The Great War memorial of Christ Church, Surbiton [KT5 8JJ] commemorates 76 men, and best matches were found for 60 of them. Most of these were soldiers killed in action or who died of wounds on the Western Front in France and Flanders.  Three men were killed by enemy action at sea; two were sailors and the other was a soldier travelling on HMS Hampshire, the ship on which Lord Kitchener also perished in 1916.  Two men died of disease in England.  One man was killed in action in Palestine; one died of disease in Mesopotamia; one died of wounds in East Africa; one died of an undiscovered cause in India; one died of disease in Salonika, and one was killed in action on the Gallipoli Peninsular.  The names of all 76 men could be identified on the Surbiton UDC memorial [KT6 6AG]. For most of the men, there was good evidence of a connection with the area within walking distance of Christ Church.  The biographical details suggested that many of the men had not travelled far from the Christ Church area in their civilian lives. At the start of the Great War, six men were already in the service of the Crown. All officers were volunteers; two had been university students, one was a civil engineer, and one was employed by a railway company in a senior position.  The volunteers or conscripts of other ranks had a wide variety of occupations including, bricklayer, carpet planner, apprentice compositor, newspaper seller, milkman, baker’s roundsman, greengrocer, shop assistant, shoeing smith, coachman, farm worker, tobacco dryer, tiler’s labour, butcher, porter, salesman, visiting domestic servant, fishmonger, errand boy, school caretaker, solicitor’s clerk, railway carriage cleaner, and under-gardener.  The mean age at death was 27 years with a range of 16 – 49 years.