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“If you think, have a kindly thought, If you speak, speak generously, Of those who as heroes fought And died to keep you free”
Set up by the Black Country Society. Our aim is to highlight local men who died in the Great War and how they have been commemorated on war memorials. Its scope covers the whole of the present Dudley Municipal Borough and therefore includes the places which have come within its bounds since 1914.
There are over fifty memorials and the number of names exceeds three thousand. Research on the names has been extensive but inevitably errors and omissions occur. We would like to hear about them concentrated on life and work before 1914, involvement in military campaigns and where each man is buried or commemorated.
Leonard Burrows was the son of Jane Burrows and lived at Greenfield Terrace, Hagley Road, Oldswinford, with his brother, William. He attended Oldswinford C of E School and was a member of St. Mary's Choir. When war came, he volunteered and joined the Royal Warwickshire Regiment. The battalion is not known, but it was possibly the 1/8th (Aston Battalion) which recruited in Stourbridge. This battalion went to France in early 1915 and was involved in the battle of Loos in September of that year. It is likely that he became a specialist machine gunner in the course of the 1915 campaign and was transferred to the newly formed Machine Gun Corps. He was attached to No. 5 Depot but at some point early in 1916 he developed a sickness. He was sent to Etaples military hospital where he died on the 13th April of spinal fever. He is buried in Etaples Hospital Cemetery (V A 17) and commemorated on the Stourbridge, Oldswinford church, Stourbridge Methodist church and Oldswinford C of E School Memorials. His brother, George, was killed in action on the 15th April 1918 and is commemorated on the Amblecote Memorial.
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Rectory Road, Old Swinford, DY8 2HA
