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Key dates over March 1915

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Lives lost on this day: 2

1st March 1915 - Husband arrested for assault on wife

Rolling casualty count: 667

1st Batt: Red Barn: Brigade Reserve Billets. At 8pm returned to ‘B’ Lines trenches. There has been a considerable change in the distribution of neighbouring units during the last three days A north westerly gale and snow storms during the morning and early afternoon;

2nd Batt: In the trenches at Cuinchy. ‘C’ and ‘D’ Coys firing line, ‘A’ and ‘B’ Coys in support. Trenches and the village shelled and bombed;

3rd Batt: In trenches at Kemmel;

Woman in Serious Condition: A woman named Ellen Birch was, it is alleged, badly assaulted by her husband, William Birch, and she now lies at the Infirmary in a critical condition, and he is in custody. The affray, it is stated, took place in a Court in Quay Street. Birch is 42 years of age, and his wife is 25 and they lived in St. Alban’s Square in Copenhagen Street, but for a few days Mrs Birch had been keeping house for her sister, Mrs. Crump, 6 Court, Quay Street. According to his statement Birch struck one blow only. Some part of the chair caught the woman on the forehead between the eyes and inflicted a terrible wound;

Skulls unearthed: During excavating on land adjoining the Priory Churchyard, in connection with the enlargement of Malvern Post Office, two skulls and a number of bones were unearthed;

A meeting of the Worcestershire Archaeological Society was held at the Shirehall, when Mr. J. W. Willis Bund presided. Mrs. McClure was to have addressed the Society on “Arthur, Prince of Wales” but, for domestic reasons, she was obliged to postpone her lecture, and finally to put it off altogether. Accordingly, Mr. G.F. Adams took her place, reading a paper on “Some Old Wills,” which he was to have delivered a month hence…There was much that was interesting, quaint and amusing in Mr. Adams’ lecture. The shortest will on record, Mr. Adams quoted, was “All to wife.” Some contained some profuse puns. One by a member of Mrs. Berkeley’s family ran – “My coffin shall be of red fir. I pine for nothing better. Even this may be thought a deal too good, though not very spruce, etc.” The lecturer read the will dated 1617, of one of the Gower family. The items included the bequest of a cross-bow to John Pakington. In connection with this will Mr. Adams said, what is not generally known, is that the word “diaper” is derived from the town Ypres, where that sort of linen was originally made.

Information researched by Sue Redding