Arthur Edwards
Edward Edwards (1858-1927) was born in Leadenham. He became a tailor and moved to Nettleham, where he met and married Sarah Mathers (1886). They lived in Kesteven St, Lincoln for 10 years before moving back to Leadenham, where they lived at Albion House (Sleaford Road). They had 11 children:
- Mary Ann (1887)
- Eleanor Emma (1888)
- Edith (1889)
- Sarah Frances (1891-93)
- Lillie (1893)
- William Mathers (1895)
- Arthur (1897)
- Charles Edward (1898)
- Ivy Stuffins (1900)
- Constance Minnie (1903)
- Phyllis May (1906)
Arthur was the first of their children to be born in Leadenham. In 1911 (aged 14) he was a butcher’s yard boy. During the First World War he joined the Sherwood Foresters (Notts and Derby Regiment). He was killed in action on 15th May 1917 whilst serving with 10th Battalion. The battalion had been on the Western Front since 1915, fighting at Ypres (1915) and the Somme (1916). In the Spring of 1917 they were heavily involved in the Arras offensive, including the first two Scarpe battles and the capture of Rouex. It was during the latter phase that Arthur died, on 15th May 1917. He has no known grave but is commemorated on the Arras Memorial and the Leadenham war memorial.
His eldest sister, Mary Ann moved to Wolverhampton, where she married and had 3 children.
In 1915 Eleanor married James Brumby, who was working in Fulbeck. During the Great War (from 1918) he served in the RAF as a motor transport driver with 272 Sqn, which had just formed at RAF Machrihanish, near Campbeltown. After he was demobbed in 1920 James and Eleanor moved to Brant Broughton.
Edith ran a millinery shop in Lincoln.
Lillie married William Gibbons and moved to Wolverhampton.
William (Bill) trained as a tailor, but whilst serving in France with the Warwickshire Regiment he was wounded and invalided out of the army. He ended up doing odd jobs as he couldn’t continue tailoring with a paralyzed arm.
Charles (Charlie), was in the South Staffordshire Regiment. After the war he married Annie Dunnington and moved to Doncaster to work on the railways.
Ivy married Harry Clawson, he also served in WW1, as a military policeman. Bill later lived with Harry & Ivy at 13 North Road, Leadenham.
Constance married John Turley and moved to Wolverhampton.
Phyllis moved to Birmingham where she married in 1939. They retired to Grantham.
Herbert Phillips
Herbert Weston Phillips was born in Long Bennington in 1924, the son of Herbert and Mary Cordon Phillips. In WW2 he joined the RAF as an air gunner and served on 158 Sqn at RAF Lissett, near Driffield, Yorkshire. He was promoted to Flight Sergeant and on the night of 22 Mar 1944 he was the mid upper gunner on a Halifax MkIII on a raid on Frankfurt, taking off from Lissett at 7pm.
At about 11.15pm local time, on their way home, they were shot down over Belgium. All the crew were killed, apart from the co-pilot who was injured and captured. The dead were buried at Gosselies near Charleroi on 25th Mar. Bert was 19.
Theirs was one of 7 Halifax aircraft shot down that night. 158 Sqn had the highest casualties in Bomber Command and their aircraft (HX342) was the 7th to carry the Sqn marking NP-F (for Freddie) in 12 months. So when a replacement aircraft was given the same letter there was some concern that NP-F was jinxed. However, the replacement Halifax christened ‘Friday the 13th’ became famous for completing 128 operations and the Yorkshire Air Museum have recently built a complete reconstruction of ‘Friday the 13th’.
