Ringing for Claude Augustus Baker on 8 October

[Admin]

The church bells will be rung half muffled at 11am on Monday 8th October to mark the centenary of the death of the fourth person named on our war memorial, Claude Augustus Baker. 

Claude died in action on the Western Front in France with the 1st Battalion of the King’s Shropshire Light Infantry just a month before the Armistice. He was buried at the Ramiscourt British Cemetery in Aisne, France. There is also an inscription on his mother’s grave in St. Michael’s churchyard.

He was born in August 1892 on Brownsea Island, the son of Margaret and John, and baptised at Lytchett Matravers, Dorset on 28 August 1892.

By 1911 Claude had left home and was living Llansamlet, near Swansea where he was employed as a gamekeeper for the Earl of Jersey.

At the time of Claude’s death his father John Baker was a church warden in Pen Selwood and also employed as a gamekeeper, living first at Hilltop and then moving to Beancroft cottage which is now in the grounds of Woodlands, Underhill.

Claude’s mother died 18 Mar 1920 having received his back pay of £11/7/11 and later a gratuity of £14.