|
 |
 |
||
|
War Memorial | The first casualty | The Pals Battalions | Peakman | War Graves | World War II | Civilian deaths World War II civilian casualties
One reason why St Agnes could have two new
stained glass windows, in memory of these parishioners, was that all the windows on that side of the church were destroyed
by a German bomb landing close to the south gate of the church yard in December 1940. Many groups of parishioners came
together to fund the new windows, with Parish funds helping with the rest. We began to wonder about bombing casualties
in our Parish. Nearly 2,250 civilians in Birmingham were killed by enemy bombing in the Second World War. There
were actually 77 raids between 8th August 1940 and 23rd April 1943. We found many records of these casualties and could
trace the ones in our parish. Twenty six people in St Agnes' parish were killed in their own homes on just three
raids in 1940, probably by stray bombs, as there were no obvious targets in the parish.
Recently this memorial was created in the Markets Area, close to St Martin’s Church which lists all the casualties including those killed in St Agnes Parish. Documents in the Central Library helped identify the local casualties and then we could find them on the War Grave Commission website. The Parish records may allow us to identify any members of the Parish from this list and we hope to list them on a new memorial in the church. Others may be of other faiths so such commemoration, so long after the event, needs to be handled with tact. We do not know of any relations of these casualties who could be contacted for any more details about them. The most poignant of these deaths in the Parish was of five members of the Piccioni family, named on the memorial in the Markets Area, including a daughter of one of the women, from a previous marriage. The Piccioni brothers had settled in England and married English women, Doris Townsend and Phyllis Bradbury. One must remember that the Italians were our allies in the First World War and many Italians settled in the UK both before and after that war. The mothers, their daughters Angela and Gina, both aged six, and Phyllis’s other daughter, Phyllis Waldron, were all killed and one wonders whether the husbands, Robert and Ernesto, had been interned, injured or survived for some other reason. Many houses on either side of the families’ home in Oxford Road were destroyed that night with one person dying two doors away and eight elsewhere in the Parish.  If anyone wants to trace casualties in their family, parish or other interested group, there are various sources of information.
The Commonwealth War Graves Commission website has many sections and the casualties are listed in the “Debt of Honour”
section. It helps to have as much information as possible about a casualty to find them and the website then gives rank,
unit, date of death, memorial or resting place, sometimes with other information. Staff in the Central Library will
always try to help such research and the website is available free of charge. The Central Library also has a CD “Soldiers
who died in the Great War 1914-19” produced by Naval & Military Press which lists different detail including place
of residence and place of enrolment, where available. There are various listings of local casualties including those
commemorated in the Hall of Memory. There is often an element of serendipity in finding other information. For example,
we found details of John Savage in a book “Boys of Shakespeare’s School” on sale in Stratford on Avon.
Finding details of the parents of a casualty in such places, particularly for the First World War, may take you back into
the census records which, currently, are only available for 1911 and earlier.Compiled by Dr. Jim Andrew with help from his wife Margaret and several parishioners. |
Previous page