Silas Rummins

Memorial: Iron Acton - St James the Less Church

Regiment: Canadian Expeditionary Force

Rank and number: Private 142768

Parents: George and Eliza Rummins (nee Skuse)

Home address: Chaingate Lane, Iron Acton, then The Yate Union Workhouse, Chipping Sodbury, then Canada

Date of birth: 15/02/1891

Place of birth: Iron Acton, Bristol

Date of death: 08/10/1915

Buried/Commemorated at: Orvillers Military Cemetery (Ref. XIII. U. 6.), Ovillers-la-Boisselle, France

Age: 25

Further information:

Silas Rummins was born on 15th February 1891 in Iron Acton. His parents were George and Eliza (nee Skuse) Rummins. He had a twin brother called Thomas and his other older siblings were Alice, Caroline, Elizabeth, James, Frederick and Sidney. Caroline was born in 1879, but she does not appear in the 1891 Census. Silas’ mother died during or shortly after giving birth to him and his twin Thomas. George remarried Mary Elizabeth Chappell in 1897. George was also born in Iron Acton

Silas and Thomas were in the Union Workhouse in Yate in 1901 at the age of nine. Silas was a Barnado’s Home Child and was sent to Canada in 1905 with a large group of children on the ship the SS Dominion.
Silas enlisted in Ontario in Canada. Arthur Threlfall Searson has found his attestation into the Canadian Expeditionary Force on 16th April 1915 as alias Private George Jones ( Service number 12768). His CWGC record states that he was the brother of Mrs. E. Brown who lived at 7 Wellington Terrace in Clifton in Bristol. This must have been his sister Elizabeth

The regiment Silas served with was known by various titles: 13th Battalion Canadian Infantry (Quebec Regiment), 13th Battalion Canadian Expeditionary Force, The Canadian Black Watch and the Royal Highland Regiment (The Royal Highlanders of Canada). His CWGC record states that he was in the 13th Battalion of the Canadian Infantry. Silas died in October 1916 at the age of twenty-five. He is buried in Ovillers Military Cemetery in France. He is also commemorated on the Rangeworthy Methodist Chapel Memorial now in Rangeworthy Parish Church, on the Iron Acton Church Memorial and the Chipping Sodbury Cottage Hospital Memorial Board now at Yate and District Heritage Centre

For further information please see the book “Lest We Forget” by Arthur Threlfall Searson

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

Tim Grubb of Chilwood Research
Yate and District Heritage Centre and the book “Lest We Forget” by Arthur Threlfall Searson