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Key dates over April 1916

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30

Lives lost on this day: 2

14th April 1916 - Drowning near Evesham

Rolling Casualty Count: 2905

At the Front:

4th Batt: Work needed doing in communication trenches. Orders received at noon to relieve one Coy of Royal fusiliers at Auchenvillers, a village on the road to Beaumont-Hamel. It was Batt`s duty to improve the defence of the village and defend it in case of attack, It had been already severely shelled by the germans. Rained in torrents all day.

8th Batt: The 7th Draft of Reinforcements was received. Batt relieved by the 7th Worcs and moved to Couin, being in Divisional Reserve. Billets were in huts in the grounds of the Chateau.

Yeomanry/Cavalry: Patrols met with some force but no action occurred. Land 5 miles east of Qatia was reconnoitred with a view to digging more wells.

On the Home Front:

Drowned near Evesham

An inquest was held at Evesham Police Court into the death of Robert Hughes whose body was found in the River Avon at North Littleton, near Evesham. The deceased was well known in the Bidford district as 'Bob' Hughes, the son of James Hughes, a local farmer. He had been working for Mr Henry Stock, farmer, of Cleeve Prior, but had decided to go to Redditch to look for work in the munitions factory as he wanted to be working for the government. Mr Stock said the deceased was in good spirits when he left and was a good swimmer. Another witness, Mr Evans of North Littleton spotted the body in some bushes and suggested that the deceased slipped in at the plank bridge at Cleeve Mill and was washed down by the flood.

Tax on Cider - In the House of Commons on Monday Capt Clive (Ross) appealed to the Chancellor of the Exchequer to abandon the proposed tax on cider. The sales of cider, he said, had decreased considerably since the outbreak of the war and the tax would fall therefore upon a declining industry and would bring ruin to the smaller makers and dealers. Many such men had already been driven out of the trade by the tied-house system and owing to the railway charges being 25 per cent higher for the conveyance of cider than beer. Mr Montague in reply stated that a previous attempt to tax cider had been abandoned, but now that every other comparable liquor was to be taxed it would be unjust to let cider go free.