You may have noticed the striking tribute which stands at West Bay.

Six silent soldiers were recently unveiled as part of the centenary of the end of the First World War commemorations.

The soldiers stand at Harbour Green and honour the lives of six local men who lost their lives in the Great War, which came to an end 100 years ago.

The installation, organised by Churches Together in Bridport and District, sees life-sized statues on display until November 15 as an act of remembrance for those who died during the four year conflict – Robert Buckler, William Gape, Herbert Gush, Richard Glare, Frederick Hoskins and Alfred Oliver.

The silhouettes were unveiled by the Lord Lieutenant of Dorset, Angus Campbell, and dedicated by the Bishop of Sherborne, the Right Rev’d Karen Gorham, in a moving service last week.

Once the installation is over, the silhouettes will move to the West Bay Discovery Centre.

Here, we tell the stories of the six men who gave their lives.

Special thanks goes to Sheila Meaney and Bridport Heritage Forum for their help in collecting these moving stories.

GUNNER RICHARD STANLEY CLENT HOARE: 3334517

123rd Battery Royal Garrison Artillery

Bridport and Lyme Regis News:

Richard was born in Bridport and was baptised in 1893 in the parish church. His parents, Alfred and Elizabeth, had married in 1892 and were living in South Street, just a stone’s throw away from St Mary’s. Alfred worked as a grocer and before her marriage, Elizabeth was a home ‘domestic assistant’.

Their happy domestic arrangements came to an abrupt end when, only two months after Richard’s baptism, Elizabeth died aged 22.

Alfred clearly couldn’t cope with a new born baby and the 1901 census shows Richard, then seven-years-old, living with his aunt, Clara Knight. Clara ran a lodging house at 6 Pier Terrace in West Bay and it was here that Richard grew up.

His father, meanwhile, had moved in with his elderly parents at 4 West Allington and was working as a butcher/shopkeeper, probably assisting his father John in his grocery business.

Ten years later there were few changes.

Alfred had moved to West Bay and was living with his mother, now a widow, at East Cliff View, but Richard was still not living with them.

Aged 17, employed as a hairdresser’s apprentice, he remained at Pier Terrace where his aunt Jane now ran the boarding house.

When war was declared, Richard enlisted in Weymouth, joining the Royal Garrison Artillery.

He was posted to France and served as a gunner with the 123rd Siege Battery, working with heavy howitzers, firing high explosives onto enemy artillery and strong points.

He was always close to the front line and in November 1917, while engaged in action laying down fire on enemy positions, a German shell burst in his dugout and Richard was killed.

He is buried at the Level Crossing Cemetery, Fampoux, Pas de Calais.

ABLE SEAMAN (LEADING BOATMAN, COASTGUARD) ROBERT FRANK BUCKLER: 159064

Royal Navy HMS Monmouth

Bridport and Lyme Regis News:

Robert was born in Burton Bradstock and baptised in the village church in 1873.

Aged seven, Robert was living at Southover with his parents, Joseph and Ann, and three older brothers, Joseph, Edwin and Lew[e]s and younger sister Sophia. At this time, his father was unemployed but the rest of the family found work in the rope industry and on the land. Robert did not follow them into any of these occupations, instead he entered the Royal Navy as ‘boy, second class’. In 1893, he was at the shore establishment, HMS Boscawen. His service record described him as ‘five feet four inches tall, brown haired and with blue/grey eyes’. His complexion was ‘ruddy’ and his character then, and throughout his service career, was described as ‘very good’.

He served on many ships in different locations and at some time in his travels, Robert met and married his wife Florence, who came from Droxford in Hampshire. Two years later he was very far from home and the 1901 census records Robert and his ship, HMS Orlando, anchored off Wusong, China.

When he returned from those travels, Robert’s working life took a new direction. He commenced duties with the coastguard service, under the command of the Admiralty. In 1904, he was based at Dungeness in Kent and after serving at several stations, arrived in West Bay in 1910. He remained there, with Florence, at the coastguard station until the outbreak of the Great War.

On August 1 1914, he was recalled to the main branch of the Royal Navy, joining the armoured cruiser HMS Monmouth. The ship was dispatched to the south and central Atlantic to provide protection for Allied shipping, and to seek out German raiders operating along the South American coast.

On November 1 1914, a British fleet of four ships met with a fleet of five German vessels outside the port of Coronel on the coast of Chile. In the battle that ensued, two British ships, HMS Good Hope and HMS Monmouth, were sunk with the loss of more than 1,600 lives.

It was the worst defeat suffered by the Royal Navy in 100 years.

Robert’s body was never recovered. He is commemorated on the Portsmouth Naval Memorial.

Private Alfred Charles Oliver: 11210

1st Battalion Coldstream Guards

Bridport and Lyme Regis News:

Alfred was born in Torquay in 1892, one of four boys born to William and Eliza Oliver.

The family moved several times when he was young and in 1901 they were living in Tyneham, Dorset, where his father, William, served as a boatman with the coastguard service.

Ten years later, aged 18, Alfred had left home and was living with his older brother William in the High Street at Sidmouth, working as an assistant in William’s ironmongery business.

Alfred’s father transferred from the coastguard station at Brixham to the station at West Bay sometime after 1911, and at the outset of the Great War, Alfred was back living in the family home there.

He was among the first young men to answer the call to join Kitchener’s New Army and travelled to Exeter to enlist with the Coldstream Guards in late August 1914. After his initial training, Alfred arrived in France on December 8 1914, travelling on toward the British lines around Lille where the Indian Corps was facing heavy German fire. On December 20, the Germans were attacking the village of Givenchy with great force and the guards were rushed south to support the Indian Corps. After marching for 20 miles, the guards launched an attack at midday on the 21 and after two days of fighting, Givenchy was secured.

The victory, however, came at a cost. Three hundred and thirty-nine British soldiers lost their lives in the battle and Alfred was one of them. He died aged 22 after serving just 14 days on foreign soil.

Alfred is commemorated on the Le Touret Memorial, Pas de Calais.

Private William Gape 200047

4th. Battalion Dorsetshire Regiment

Bridport and Lyme Regis News:

William was baptised at Burton Bradstock in 1896, but he and his family lived in West Bay. By the age of six, William, his parents William and Ada, and his grandfather, Bowden Critchard, were living at 73a West Bay and William continued to live at this address until he enlisted in the Dorsetshire Regiment.

His father worked as a drayman, delivering beer to Bridport’s many pubs, and later was a foreman at the coal yard, supervising his 15-year-old son working alongside him.

William was only 18 when war broke out but he enlisted with the Dorsetshire Regiment and in 1915, travelled with the regiment to Mespotamia, present day Iraq. The regiment’s task was to protect British interests in the Persian Gulf and the Suez Canal and for several months they were successful in pushing back the Turkish forces. However, this state of affairs did not last and the regiment made a tactical withdrawal to Kut-al-Amara – a town surrounded on three sides by the Tigris River. Here they fought and were besieged for more than five months.

No supplies or reinforcements reached them and after 147 days there was no food left. Many of the soldiers were suffering from scurvy, diarrhoea and frostbite. With no hope of survival, General Townsend took the decision to surrender and as a consequence, thousands of men were taken as prisoners of war.

Despite their poor health, The men were route-marched 515 miles through the desert from Kut to Turkish prisoner of war camps. Thousands of them died on the way from heat, exhaustion and brutal treatment at the hands of their guards.

William did not survive. There is no exact date given for his death. He is listed as ‘missing, presumed dead’ between May 29 and December 31 1916.

He was just 20-years-old.

He is commemorated on the Basra Memorial.

LEADING STOKER BOATMAN COASTGUARD

FREDERICK HOSKINS: 28122

Royal Navy HMS Goliath

Bridport and Lyme Regis News:

Fred was born in Symondsbury, the eldest of six children born to Frederick and Emily Hoskins. The family later moved into Bridport, living next to the Five Bells Inn on South Street and then at 1 Cottage Row, St Michael’s Lane.

Fred’s father was a blacksmith – an occupation he followed throughout his life, but Fred did not follow in his footsteps.

He joined the Navy in 1896 and served on many ships during the following 15 years. Not all of his duties were onboard ship. For seven months he served as a boatman coastguard at Warsash, Hampshire, and between November 1913 and July 1914 the same duties took him to West Bay.

He was a married man. When stationed in Portsmouth he met and wed Annie Gregory and they made their married home in the port.

When war broke out in August 1914, Fred was transferred from his post in West Bay to serve onboard the battleship HMS Goliath – one of the British Fleet vessels sent to the Dardanelles to support the Gallipoli landings on April 1915.

Early in the morning of May 13, the foggy conditions just off Cape Helles allowed the German destroyer Mauvenet to evade the British destroyers Beagle and Bulldog and she was able to close in on HMS Goliath. The Mauvenet fired off two torpedoes at close range and Goliath was hit alongside the fore funnel. The ship immediately began to list badly to port. Moments later a third torpedo struck the ship, this time hitting the after turret.

There was a huge explosion and the Goliath turned before most of the crew could get to the decks. Within minutes, the ship sank.

Fred – a stoker below deck in the engine room – stood no chance of survival.

Of the 700 crew on board only 130 survived – the largest loss of life on any ship engaged in the Dardanelles campaign.

Fred is commemorated on the Portsmouth Naval Memorial.

Sergeant Herbert John Gush: 3158 1174

Machine Gun Corps. West Kent Regiment

Herbert’s early life has been fairly easy to trace, but something of a mystery surrounds his life after the outbreak of the Great War.

He was born in West Bay, just a stone’s throw away from the Georg Hotel, and was one of five children born to John Moores Gush and his wife Elizabeth.

John was a fisherman, aged 39 when Herbert was born, but before Herbert’s 10th birthday, his father had died. The family were then living at 9 Arcade, West Bay, and Elizabeth was supporting her two youngest sons by taking in washing.

The three older children, Jessie, Catherine and Edward, had all left home and before long, Herbert followed in their footsteps. In 1907, like many West Bay men before him, Herbert joined the Royal Navy, serving initially on HMS Nelson. He was 20 when he joined – five feet nine inches tall, brown haired and grey eyed.

He signed up for 12 years, but in 1912 he ‘bought himself out’ – at a cost of £18 after completing only seven years’ service. A year before he left HMS Imperieuse, he spent some home leave back in West Bay, staying at 2 George Street, the home of his uncle Thomas and widowed mother.

This is where things get confusing.

When war broke out, Herbert was 27. With his record of service at sea, it would be reasonable to expect he might return to the Royal Navy, but naval records show no trace of him. However, a Herbert John Gush appears as a sergeant in the West Kent Machine Gun Corps.

There is no record that he died in action, in fact Probate records show that he died in 1920 in Parkstone, Poole, leaving £88 17s 1d to his youngest brother Sidney, who, like him, was employed as a tramway motorman in that town.

He was only 33 when he died so his premature death may well have been the result of injuries and wounds sustained during the fighting.

His service record is unavailable, so we can only guess at the events of the last few years of his life.