Selected Biographies

Armes, Raymond Linay – Born: Kings Lynn, Norfolk in 1879.  Parents: Parents: William Linay Armes [Coconut Mat Manufacturer] and Sarah Jane [née Cooper].  Family Connections: Brother to William Morriss Armes [b1872] and Reginald John Armes [b1878].  Home: St Nicholas Street, Kings Lynn, Norfolk (1881), 10 Princeton Mansions, Princeton Street, Holborn, London (1901), Chilton Hall, Chilton, Sudbury (1911).  Occupation: Coconut Matting Manufacturer of William Armes and Sons of Chilton Mills, Sudbury (1911).  Service Record: Raymond was posted to South Africa seeing action in Cape Colony, Orange Free State and Transvaal during the Second Anglo-Boer War where he was taken prisoner, later escaping his captors in August 1901.  He re-enlisted in 1914 with the Mechanical Transport Section of the Army Service Corps where he held the rank of Sergeant.  Granted a commission, as Captain he joined 7^th [Service] Battalion Prince of Wales’s [North Staffordshire] Regiment in January 1915.  He was posted to Gallipoli in July 1915 as part of 39^th Brigade, 13^th [Western] Division, seeing action at the Battles of Sari Bair, Russell’s Top and Hill 60 in August.  Following evacuation from the Turkish peninsula in January 1916 he was transferred a month later to Mesopotamia as part of the relief force attempting to break the siege of Kut al Amara.  The attack failed and Kut fell to the Ottoman Turks.  Died: Captain Armes was killed in action outside Kut al Amara on 9.4.1916 and is commemorated on the Basra Memorial [panel 34], Al Basra, Basra, Iraq.[1]

Armes, Reginald John ‘Jake’ – Born: Kings Lynn, Norfolk on 17.3.1876.[2]  Parents: William Linay Armes [Coconut Mat Manufacturer] and Sarah Jane [née Cooper].  Family Connections: Brother to William Morriss Armes [b1872] and Raymond Linay Armes [b1879].  Home: St Nicholas Street, Kings Lynn, Norfolk (1881), Hardwicke House, Sudbury, Suffolk (1891), St Heliers, The Avenue, Camberley, Surrey (1911), Rendish Lodge, Stour Street, Sudbury (1921), Morleigh, Third Avenue, Frinton-on-Sea, Essex (1939) to [1948].  Occupation: Army Officer (1911) to [1919], Travelling Inspector for Alfred Holt and Company of Liverpool [1923], Shipping Agent [1931], Retired Army Officer (1921 to 1939).[3]  Married: Eleanora Campbell Riland-Bedford in 1906 [div] and Kathleen Margaret Holmes in 1926.  Service Record: Reginald was granted a commission in 1896 with 4^th Battalion, Suffolk Regiment in 1896, transferring to The Prince of Wales’s [North Staffordshire] Regiment in 1899 and posted first to India in 1899, then with 2^nd Battalion to South Africa during the Second Anglo-Boer War, being promoted to Captain in 1902.[4]  He was posted to France on 7.9.1914, his unit taking part in the unofficial Christmas Truce of 24/25^th December meeting German officers from a Saxony regiment in no-mans-land.  Having joined the General Staff as a Captain in 1915 he was promoted to Major in 1916 and to Lieutenant Colonel the following year.  He was subsequently transferred to the Royal Air Force on 17.7.1918 joining the staff of the Inspector General at the Air Ministry, relinquishing his commission in May 1919 having been made a Companion 3^rd Class of the Order of St Michael and St George in the 1919 New Year Honours. During the Second World War he was the commanding officer of 10^th Battalion, Suffolk Home Guard.[5]  Died: Colchester, Essex on 15.4.1948.[6]

Armes, William ‘Morriss’ – Born: Kings Lynn, Norfolk in 1872.  Parents: William Linay Armes [Coconut Mat Manufacturer] and Sarah Jane [née Cooper].  Family Connections: Brother to Reginald John Armes [b1878] and Raymond Linay Armes [b1879].  Home: St Nicholas Street, Kings Lynn, Norfolk (1881), Hardwicke House, Sudbury, Suffolk (1891), 10 Princeton Mansions, Princeton Street, Holborn, London (1901), Chilton Hall, Chilton, Sudbury (1911).  Occupation: Manufacturer’s Clerk (1891), Managing Director of William Armes and Sons, Coconut Matting Manufacturers of Chilton Mills, Sudbury (1901 to 1911).  Service Record: Morriss was granted a commission as a Second Lieutenant with 2^nd [Volunteer] Battalion, Suffolk Regiment in 1892.[7]  Following the Army Reforms of 1908 his unit was re-styled 5^th Battalion Territorials with Armes now its commanding officer.  Lieutenant Colonel Armes sailed with 1/5^th Battalion, Suffolk Regiment when it was posted to Gallipoli on 5.8.1915 as part of 163^rd Brigade, 54^th Division.  Within hours of landing his unit was moved forward into frontline trenches on the south face of a steep and rocky hill called Karakol Dagh.  At dawn a matter of days later the Suffolks and the three other untested battalions of 163^rd Brigade were ordered to secure the heights of Kavek Tepe and Teke Tepe to the east.  With little in the way of artillery support the battalion faced a withering barrage of shells, machine gun and rifle fire, losing more than 150 men, including the commanding officer.[8]  Died: Colonel Armes was listed as wounded but missing later presumed killed in action on 12.8.1915.  An eye-witness account by a Private Harvey from ‘C’ Company states that although the battalion was under heavy fire Armes continued to advance receiving until he received a shot to the chest.  With extreme effort the officer managed to raise himself, waving his revolver to encourage his men forward when he quickly was shot further twice to the face and fell.  He has no known grave but is commemorated on the Hellas Memorial [panel 46 and 47], Cape Hellas, Eceabat İlçesi, Çanakkale, Turkey, on a memorial window in St Gregorys Church, Sudbury and on the town’s war memorial.[9]

Notes – [1] Commonwealth War Grave Commission record.  My thanks to Roger Bragger for sharing this image.  [2] 1939 Register.  [3] Passenger Manifests SMS Helenus on 16.4.1923 and TSS Ulysses on 26.9.1931.  [4] London Gazette 11.2.1896, The Army and Navy Gazette 7.1.1899 and Anglo-Boer War Records 1899-1902 [WO 100/199].  [5] Regimental records of officers’ services 1775-1914 [WO 76/112], British Royal Air Force, Officers’ Service Records 1912-1920, Supplement to the London Gazette 1.1.1919 and Service Medal and Award Rolls Index Cards 1914-1922 [WO 372]. [6] National Probate Calendar.  [7] The Army and Navy Gazette 2.4.1892. [8] For details of the battalion’s time on the Peninsula see Lieutenant-Colonel C. C. R. Murphy, The History of the Suffolk Regiment 1914-1927 [London: Hutchinson and Co, 1928] pp99-110 and Capt. A. Fair and Capt. E. D. Wolton “The Suffolk Regiment”: the history of the 1/5^th Battalion [London: Eyre and Spottiswoode, 1923].  See also his Service Medal and Award Rolls Index Cards 1914-1922 [WO 372].  [9] Commonwealth War Grave Commission record.  Image courtesy of the Imperial War Museum.