Photo: Angela Conroy

In Whitley Bay Cemetery is a family headstone which reads:

In
loving memory of
Ellen Jane Bird
died Dec. 26 1935 Aged 78
William Bird, husband of the above
died at Vancouver, B.C., May 3rd, 1912, aged 59.
Lieut. Francis William Bird, Canadian Infantry
killed in action at Ypres Aug. 10 1916
Major Thomas Griffin Bird, R.E., D.S.O.
died May 7 1945
Elsie Mary Bird
died July 21 1966

Jean Longstaff has submitted the following:-

Francis William Bird was born in Sheffield on 21st June 1884, where his father William was beadle at Cutler’s Hall, and he was baptised a month later in his mother’s home village of Ladbroke, Warwickshire. Ellen Jane Griffin had been born and brought up in Ladbroke where she married Yorkshire born William Bird in July 1880, their first son Thomas was born a year later, followed by Francis and then Agnes in 1889. The 1891 census shows that William and Ellen Jane, along with Thomas and Agnes were living in Sheffield, whilst Francis was in Ladbroke living with his maternal uncle and his family. BY 1901 William and Ellen Jane were managing a coffee shop in Sheffield, and by 1909 they and both of their sons were living in Vancouver, where Thomas and Frank worked for the Electrical Construction Company. Frank was also a volunteer militia man with the Duke of Connaught’s Own Rifles.

After the death of William in May 1912, Ellen Jane returned to live in Warwickshire, Thomas left his wife and child in Canada whilst he returned to England and became a Major in the Royal Engineers and Frank enlisted on 13th November 1914 with 29th (Tobin’s Tigers) Battalion in Vancouver, becoming Private 75331 in “C” Company. Promoted to Colour Sergeant in December he took the Officer’s Training Course before going overseas, and was commissioned as a Lieutenant on 1st May 1915.

Three weeks later he sailed with the 29th aboard the SS Missanabie from Montreal to Devonport and then a posting to Dibgate Camp in Kent. Mid November saw the Battalion cross to France as part of the 6th Infantry Brigade, 2nd Canadian Division and the move into Belgium where five days after their arrival their first front line trench tour began near Kemmel.

On 27th January 1916, he was wounded in the head by shrapnel near Kemmel, and after treatment was evacuated to England and admitted to Empire Hospital in London. A month after being wounded a Medical Board found that although his wound had healed, a foreign body remained in his scalp, and he continued to suffer from amnesia and partial paralysis of his face and right arm. His condition was expected to improve and he was granted two months’ sick furlough, after which he was classified as fit for Home Duty and was appointed acting Adjutant 30th Reserve Battalion at Hythe.

Rejoining the 29th Battalion in France at the beginning of July he was appointed Bombing Officer and on the night 10th August 1916 he was reconnoitring in No Man’s Land near St.Eloi when he was shot in the head with a rifle bullet and killed instantly.

In Canada he is remembered on their Virtual War Memorial and in their Book of Remembrance.

Thomas Griffin Bird returned from Canada to live in Newcastle, where he became a director of Armstrong Whitworth, hence the local headstone.

Francis William Bird is not remembered on a local war memorial.

Canadian Book of Remembrance
Epitaphs of the Great War
Canadian Virtual War Memorial
The CWGC entry for Lieutenant Bird