Service No: 10467 – 3rd Battalion Worcestershire Regiment
Herbert Rushton was born in Buckland End during 1889. He was baptised at St Mary and St Margaret Church, Castle Bromwich on 2nd June of the same year. He was the fifth of six sons born to Alfred Rushton and Martha Smith, sometimes referred to by her stepfather’s surname of Thornton. His father Alfred had been one of nine known children born to George Rushton and Anna Sophia Upton. Two of his brothers, George and Joseph, had tragically died in 1860 after consuming rat poison whilst out collecting coal from the railway station.
Some time before 1911 Herbert enlisted with the 1st Battalion Worcestershire Regiment. The 1911 census shows him stationed at Albany Barracks, Carisbrooke, Isle of Wight. He appears to have served his colours and in 1913 married Elsie Ellen Howes. By 1914 he was working for the Midland Railway at Water Orton Railway Station before re-joining his regiment in August.
Three of the Rushton brothers, Albert John, George William and Herbert are known to have served during WW1. The movement of the British Expeditionary Force to France began on the 9th August 1914 with the 3rd Worcestershire receiving their orders on the 12th August 1914 and setting sail from Southampton to France on the 15th onboard the S.S. Bosnian. The regiment was to first see action at Mons later that month. Herbert appears to have entered the theatre of war on the 2nd November 1914. Just over a month later on 21st December 1914 his wife gave birth to a daughter, Elsie Irene.
Attack on Spanbroek Mill, Lindenhoek, Belgium – 12th March 1915
From the 4th till the 11th of March 1915, the 3rd Worcestershire had lain in billets at Locre. On the morning of March 10th, the rumble of the firing at Neuve Chapelle to the southward could be heard. Next day came orders for the attack. The 7th Brigade would take and consolidate the Spanbroek Mill, as a preliminary to a further advance. The battalions detailed for the attack were the 3rd Worcestershire and the 1st Wiltshire, with the 2nd South Lancashire in support. The assault was timed for 8.40 a.m. the next morning, 12th March 1915.
The front-line trenches of the 3rd Division were held by the battalions of the 85th Brigade and the assaulting battalions, after a night march from their billets at Locre, formed up at dawn of March 12th in newly dug assembly trenches behind the front line. Then came orders that the assault was postponed. The previous two days had been misty. On the morning of March 12th, the mist, which further south was even then veiling the Bavarian counterattack against Neuve Chapelle, had deepened on the Messines Ridge to a dense white fog through which nothing could be seen. The British artillery had been bombarding the enemy’s positions since 7 a.m. but the mist made it impossible to observe the result.
The assembly trenches were only half dug and were full of water. The two battalions crouched in them all the morning while the German shells crashed down. Slowly the mist cleared, and as it cleared the German fire became more accurate. There were many casualties.
The British artillery opened their bombardment at 2.30 p.m., and at 4.10 p.m. the leading companies of the two battalions rose from the waterlogged ditches, crossed the front-line trenches by temporary plank-bridges under a hail of bullets and plunged forward through knee-deep mud to the assault. The enemy’s fire was fierce and deadly, and officers and men went down at every step. The survivors plunged on through the mud, reached the German wire entanglements and struggled through such gaps as they could find. A small party had succeeded in breaking through the German lines and seizing a group of ruined houses. That was the total success. The rest of the two attacking companies of the 3rd Worcestershire had been shot down and were lying killed or wounded on the mud between the trench-lines. The other two companies of the Battalion had been ordered not to move from the assembly trenches.
Soon the enemy began to press inwards along the trenches with bomb and bayonet against the two little parties, which had penetrated their position. Isolated though they were, the Worcestershire lads held firm and repulsed all attacks for over three hours. But no help came: instead the British artillery, misinformed as to the position, commenced again to bombard the German front line, and annihilated the helpless party in the ruined buildings.
The losses in that disastrous attack were severe. The two attacking companies were almost annihilated. The casualties of the Battalion were nearly 180, including Herbert Rushton. On the 16th March 1915, the 3rd Worcestershire again moved forward and once more took over the same trenches. Many of the dead still lay there awaiting burial, and that sad duty was the principal occupation of three depressing days.
During the attack on Thursday 12th March 1915 the men of the 3rd Battalion Worcestershire Regiment itself suffered heavy casualties with 9 officers and 77 other ranks killed. All but two of the officers are buried at Kemmel Chateau Military Cemetery. All but four of the other ranks are remembered on a panel at Menin Gate Memorial at Ieper (Ypres). Herbert Rushton’s name is among them. His name is also listed on the Altar of Remembrance located on The Green, Castle Bromwich.
On April 30th, 1915 a few weeks after Herbert’s death, his younger brother Rupert was involved in an affray with his neighbour, Ellen Barnes. He was summoned to court where it was alleged that he had assaulted her with a broom. During the court case in which Rupert was acquitted, it emerged that his mother, Martha, was grieving the loss of Herbert and another of her son’s being missing in action. It is not clear which one of the other sons was missing, but they all appear to have survived the war.
Herbert’s pension papers show that his widow, Elsie Ellen married Harry George Staines in 1916. On the 30th March 1929 she married for a third time, her new husband being Howard Joseph Wall.
