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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.
Reuben Andrews was born in Halesowen and attended Halesowen C of E school and the Halesowen Methodist church. He volunteered for the Warwicks Territorials and joined the 2/7th Battalion in the 61st Division which went to France in May 1916. They were engaged on the Somme in 1916 and in the Third Battle of Ypres in mid-1917 but their first major engagement was at Cambrai in November 1917. This was a major British attack involving many tanks which created successful breaches in the Hindenburg Line. The Warwicks were held back to face the expected German counter-attack and suffered severe casualties from the 30th November. Among them was Private Reuben Andrews who was killed in action on the 5th December. His name is commemorated on the Cambrai Memorial and on the Halesowen, Halesowen United Methodist church and Halesowen C of E school Memorials.
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ST JOHN THE BAPTIST CHURCH, High St, Halesowen, Dudley, West Midlands, England, B63 3BB
