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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.
Bert Phipps lived at 49 Hill Street, Stourbridge, and attended Hill St. Council School and the Baptist chapel. He was the youngest of three brothers serving in the forces and in 1917 he enlisted in the 10th Worcesters. This battalion fought at Passchendaele in late 1917 and then survived the first great German offensive of March 1918. However, the battalion moved to face the second German attack in April on the River Lys. The troops were driven back from the Messines Ridge and on the 14th April were holding Neuve Eglise. In the attempt to halt the next German assault Lance Corporal Bert Phipps was seriously injured. He was sent to the military hospital at Etaples and here he died of wounds on the 25th April. He was 21 years of age and is buried in Etaples Military Cemetery (LXVI A 5). He is commemorated on the Stourbridge, St. Thomas's church, Baptist chapel and Greenfields school Memorials.
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Market Street, Stourbridge, West Midlands, DY8 1AQ
