Herbert Dolling

Memorial: Thornbury - Castle School

Regiment: Royal Warwickshire Regiment

Medals: British War Medal, Next of Kin Memorial Plaque 1914 - 1921, Victory Medal

Rank and number: Private 28894

Parents: Edward Richard and Alice Dolling

Marital status: Single

Home address: The Bank, The Plain, Thornbury, Bristol or 9 Devonshire Buildings, Bath

Date of birth: 1898

Place of birth: Combe Down, Somerset

Date of death: 27/08/1917

Buried/Commemorated at: Tyne Cot Memorial (Panel 23 to 28.), Belgium

Age: 19

Further information:

Bronze Tablet and Wooden Memorial Board

Herbert Dolling’s father Edward, a bank manager, brought his second wife Alice and his family to live in Thornbury in about 1906. Herbert’s half sister May attended Thornbury Grammar School that year, the first year that girls had been admitted to that school. Herbert was also educated at the Grammar School

In December 1915 it was reported in the Bristol Times and Mirror that the Thornbury Red Cross Aid Society, formed at the start of the war, were holding sewing meetings weekly at the bank, by the kind invitation of Mr and Mrs Dolling. The gatherings had been well attended and the members had made 1764 garments so far, which had been distributed to local servicemen, sent to prisoners of war, or donated to the many groups helping with the war effort

Herbert joined the 1st/8th Battalion, Royal Warwickshire Regiment and was Killed in Action in Flanders in August 1917, possibly near St Julien, during the Third Battle of Ypres. The weather was unusually wet and everything was bogged down

The Battalion war diary reports:- ‘26th August contd. The Company moved into positions previously reconnoitred for them and dug themselves in as far as was possible under the appalling weather conditions. During the greater part of the night rain was falling and the ground became more and more difficult to traverse. August 27th - The morning gave promise of a fine day, but the ground was allowed no opportunity for drying, as several showers fell. The men remained concealed in their positions, apparently unobserved by the enemy until zero (1:55 pm.). The 5th Company then attacked under cover of our artillery and Machine Gun barrage, but owing to the activity of the enemy's Machine Guns and to a much greater extent the impassibility of the ground the final objectives laid down in operations orders were not gained. Springfield however was taken and positions consolidated to the E of the Winnipeg-Springfield Road’

Sixty six men were killed. Fifty nine of them, including Herbert, have no known grave and are commemorated on the Tyne Cot Memorial. This is one of four memorials to the missing in Belgian Flanders which cover the area known as the Ypres Salient. Broadly speaking, the Salient stretched from Langemarck in the north to the northern edge in Ploegsteert Wood in the south, but it varied in area and shape throughout the war

By kind permission, this information is based on the following source(s):

Thornbury Roots Website, Thornbury and District Museum Research Group, Forces War Records and CWGC