royalsussexregiment

There is some information on the TheyServed wiki: Lieutenant Carl Adolf Max ("Charles") Bingen was an English officer of the British Army who died during the First World War. He was born on 20 July 1895, at Hampstead, the son of German-born bank clerk Max Nathan and Leily Eliza Bingen (née Elsner), of London. His initial education took him to Corinth House, a boarding school for Jewish boys, before he entered Cheltenham College and the Ecole de Commerce, Neuchatel. Bingen afterwards became a junior bank clerk and volunteered shortly after war broke out in 1914. He was commissioned on 22 September 1914, in the 5th Battalion, The Royal Sussex Regiment.[1] Bingen first went to the Western Front in February 1915. He died on 10 February 1916, killed while supervising works behind the front line.[1] On the first anniversary of his death, Bingen's family placed a notice in the Times newspaper, containing an extract from a poem by Robert Louis Stevenson: Took his fill of music, joy of thought and seeing, Came and stayed and went, nor ever ceased to smile.[2] His death continued to be observed with a notice in the Times until 1947. He is buried in Hebuterne Military Cemetery." Notes 1. De Ruvigny's Roll of Honour, 1914-1924, p. 24. Retrieved from ancestry.co.uk, 31 October 2010. 2. The Times (41399), Col A, p. 1: "In Memoriam". 10 February 1917. See: theyserved.wikia.com/wiki/Charles_Bingen

A reference to the marriage of his parents (from the Jewish Chronicle): "ELSNER JC 20.4.1894 marriages On 17th April at Hampstead Synagogue, Max N. Bingen of 6, Gascony Avenue, West Hampstead, son of Carl Bingen of Bonn, and nephew of the late Comendatore Adolf Bingen, of Genoa, to Leily, daughter of the late Mr. S. Elsner and Mrs. Elsner, of 95 Marylands Rd., Maida Hill W." See: www.jeffreymaynard.com/JC1890to5EK.htm

Entry in CWGC database: BINGEN, CHARLES ADOLF MAX Rank: Lieutenant Date of Death: 10/02/1916 Age: 20 Regiment/Service: Royal Sussex Regiment, 5th Bn. Cemetery: Hebuterne Military Cemetery, Pas de Calais, France Grave Reference: I. Q. 16.Cemetery Additional Information: Son of Max N. and Leily Bingen, of 14, Briardale Gardens, Hampstead, London. See: www.cwgc.org/find-war-dead/casualty/322203/BINGEN,%20CHAR...

This is Sidney Alfred Nathaniel Shafto BARTHROPP, an ex-Cadet of Cambridge UOTC, Commissioned as a Second Lieutenant into 3rd Battalion Royal Sussex on 15th August 1914. He was born at Kensington Court on 25 March 1892, the son of Major Alfred Shafto Barthropp (Suffolk Regiment and later a member of the Stock Exchange) [d. 16 Feb 1935, aged 82] and Ellen Ada Wentworth Stanley of Winchester [d. 19 Jan 1956, aged 93]. The family home during his youth was at Newport House on the High Street in Newport, near Saffron Walden, Essex. After school at Winchester and Trinity Cambridge he went on to study Holy Orders at the Bishop's Hostel, Farnham, (his paternal grandfather was a clergyman). On the outbreak of war he joined the 3rd (Special Reserve) Battalion of the Royal Sussex at Dover before being attached to the 2nd Battalion in France. He was killed in action (during a German attack near the brickstacks at Cuinchy) after only being with the Battalion a fortnight. He was buried in the Cuinchy communal cemetery. Sidney had one sibling, an elder sister, Edith, b. 1887, five years older than him. The German attack on 1st Division at the Cuinchy, between Bethune and La Bassee, on 29th January 1915, was launched on the Kaiser's birthday and was principally beaten off by 2nd Battalion Royal Sussex. Acting Company Sergeant Major Bernard Norris Butcher of the 2nd Royal Sussex won a Distinguished Conduct Medal (often regarded as a 'near miss' for a Victoria Cross) on 29th January for his leadership in the defence of 'The Keep' feature amongst the brickstacks. //

Help piece together the Life Stories of more than 8 million men and women who made a contribution during the First World War at www.livesofthefirstworldwar.org/

Should this not read "served as adjutant of a service battalion"?

Eric Stuart Ellis.

Citation for the award of the Military Cross to Temporary Lieutenant Eric Stuart Ellis Royal Sussex Regiment published in the London Gazette 29731 of 18th August 1916. "For conspicuous gallantry during operations. He led his bombing party with great dash into the enemy's support line. He was knocked down by the blast of a shell, but pushed on and accounted for two of the enemy with his revolver." He continued to serve in the Army after the war; his promotion to Captain in the Royal Sussex Regiment is published in the London Gazette of 10 Nov 1922, effective 2 Oct 1922 with seniority from 24 Mar 1920. It appears likely that he was born in India. Also that he was married to a Kathleen Marion Collier, b. 1899. But she is shown to have later married Cuthbert Fennessy Selous in 1927. Selous was born at Faysabad, India, b. 1876 (which would mean at marriage he was 51 and she 28, suggesting the possibility that she was a widow?).//

Cuthbert Fennessey Selous died in 1945 at Tonbridge in Kent. So it was Eric Stuart Ellis who married his widow, then Kathleen Marion Selous, at Plympton Devon in 1949. By then Eric Ellis was in his early 50s and Kathleen was 49. She had three children, Reginald aged 20, Patricia 18, and Diana 16. Eric Stuart Ellis is shown as being appointed as a Captain in the 4th Battalion The Queen's Regiment on 8 Oct 1935. London Gazette of 8 Oct 1935.

Eric Stuart Ellis was commissioned into 13th (Service) Battalion The Royal Sussex Regiment on 4th January 1915. 13th Battalion was a 'Pals' battalion, raised by 42-year-old Lt Col Claude Lowther MP on 20 Nov 1914 at Bexhill in Kent. It was known as the 3rd South Down battalion and irreverently as 'Lowther's Lambs'. Between 16 Nov 1914 and 4 Jan 1915 there were 15 officers newly commissioned into the Battalion. Claude Lowther had fought in the Second Boer War in the 8th Imperial Yeomanry and at Fabers Put on 30 Mar 1900 was recommended for a Victoria Cross but received only a Mention in Despatches. 13th Battalion initially trained at Maidstone and was adopted by the War Office in July 1915. In Sep 1915 they moved to Aldershot, and then in Oct 1915 to Witley where they formed an element of 116 Bde of 39 Div. The Battalion sailed from Southampton on 5 Mar 1916 aboard the SS 'Viper' and SS 'Australind', landing at Le Havre in the snow on 6 Mar 1916. They went into the front line 'under instruction' for the first time on 12 Mar 1916. Lt Col Lowther was denied the opportunity to lead his men in action in France. He returned to Herstmonceux Castle before 13th Battalion took over a section of front line under their own command for the first time, when they relieved 13th Battalion Royal Welch Fusiliers at Givenchy on 15 Apr 1916. From the War Diary; published at www.1914-1918.net/sussex.htm The three pals battalions of the Royal Sussex - 11th, 12th and 13th - the South Down battalions, or "Lowther's Lambs" - suffered terrible casualties on 30 June 1916, 24 hours before the much better known "First Day on the Somme". This was in a diversionary attack, a large scale raid launched by 39th Division at a position called the Boar's Head, near Richebourg l'Avoue. The three South Down battalions suffered 360 killed and 1,100 wounded in a fruitless attack that had no effect on the enemy's abilities to withstand next day's assault on the Somme. The vast majority of the losses were to men from the county of Sussex. It is almost certainly to have been in this action that Eric Ellis won his MC. Going over the top on a flank attack at 3.05 am, following a 15 minute artillery fire-plan, Lieutenants Whitley and Ellis, Platoon Commanders in 'A' Company, are recorded as having 'gained a footing in the enemy trench'.//