Story
Herbert John Balson served in France where he was wounded in action shortly before the end of the war. Born at Whiteways, Tyneham, in the spring of 1885. Herbert was the son of Amelia and William, a woodman and agricultural labourer who had also been born at Tyneham. (The Dorset hamlet was to become a ghost village after Second World War when villagers were forced to evacuate to make way for the Army.) Herbert was baptised on 10 May 1885 at Tyneham Church. Originally living at 10 Whiteways, by 1901 the family had moved a short distance to 42 West Whiteways. Herbert, then 15, was employed on the Tyneham House estate, which was owned by the Bond family. On 6 December 1908 Herbert married Gillingham-born Gertrude Ellen Martin and they had two children, both born in Poole. Gertrude was expecting at the time of their nuptials. Son James entered this world on 5 April 1909 and daughter Edna Mary Joan on 29 August of the following year. In 1911, the family was living at 34 Green Road in Poole and Herbert was working as a contractor's carman. He attested on 7 June1916 and was posted to the 9th Hampshire Regt on 7 Dec of that year. Just before that he had committed an offence of 'cruelty to a horse' [?] on 17 November 1916. For this, Wareham Magistrates sentenced him to a month"s imprisonment with hard labour. He may have enlisted as an alternative to serving the sentence for details of the offence were requested by the officer commanding the 2/9th Cyclist Battalion of the Hampshires. Within a week of his call-up he was treated at Parkhurst, Isle of Wight, for a lymphatic inflammation on his right thigh. He remained there for nearly a month. Pte Balson, who was 5ft 2.5ins with a 35-inch chest and weighed 8st 3lbs and marked with a "bubonocele" intestinal bulging on his left side, initially with the Hampshire Regiment's Egyptian Expeditionary Force. (He was issued in September 1917 with an Army truss.) He transferred to serve in France on 12 April 1918. On 7 August 1918 he was wounded in action, suffering gunshot injuries to the shoulder and hips. Herbert was brought home and taken to the Tankerton Hospital in Whitstable, Kent, where he remained for three weeks before being transferred to Shorncliffe and then on to an Eastbourne hospital to convalesce. On November 14, 1918, three days after the Armistice, Herbert John Balson was posted to serve with the 5th Worcesters and served in Ireland. (His theatre of war was recorded as 'Irish'.) His wife, Gertrude, and the children may have moved temporarily back to Gillingham, Dorset during the war. (Her address in his service record was changed in January 1918 to Jubilee House, Wykemarsh.) In 1919, however, when his Protection Certificate (for use seeking employment after the war) was issued, his home was given again as Green Road, Poole. He was demobbed in late 1919, Following the war, he was a granted a weekly pension totalling 44 shillings 5d (£2.22p) including an allowance for his wife and children. Curiously, a Herbert Balson, of Povington (near Tyneham), who served with the Worcesters, was on the South Dorset Register of Electors from 1918-22. William Balson, (his father), Amelia Balson (his mother) were also listed, as well as a Charles Balson.) In 1923, however, a directory shows 'Herbert Balson, greengrocers' at 34 Green Road Poole. By 1929, a Herbert Balson was living at nearby 13 South Road. When the 1939 Register was recorded, Herbert and Gertrude were living with a 30-year-old son, Herbert J. Balsom, at South Road. Herbert senior was a coal merchant ('master and working'), his wife a housewife and Herbert junior a general labourer in public works. A Herbert Balsom was still residing at 13 South Road in 1957. When he died, on 4 May 1962, at the age of 77, he and Gertrude had moved back to Green Road, though now at number 57. Probate was granted to Gertrude and he left effects to the value of £280 10s. * Please contact us if you wish to suggest an amendment or have additional information.
Subdivision
- Worcestershire Regiment