Bank Top House
Ronald Henry Baugust Private 1389 - 15th Bn. Royal Warwickshire Regiment Killed in action Sunday 3rd September 1916 aged 25 No known grave, but commemorated on Thiepval Memorial, Somme, France Ronald Henry Baugust was the son of Henry Thomas and Clara, born in Hilderstone, Near Stone, Staffs in 1891. Henry Thomas Baugust married Clara Annie Bates in Leicester in 1886. They had both become teachers. On 1891 census, the couple were working in Hilderstone, near Stone in Staffordshire, living in the school house with their one year old son, Reginald Edmund. A daughter, Margeret H. was also born in Hilderstone, in 1894. (The census was taken just before Ronald was born). Henry became head teacher at Gnosall Parochial School on 24 th  June 1895. Clara was also engaged to teach at the same time. An older sister, Constance Annie was christened in the parish in 1895. On 29 th  November 1895 their 5 year old son Reginald Edmund died of meningitis. The 1901 census shows the family were living at Bank Top House (which coincidentally had been a private school in earlier times). By 1911 Henry and Clara’s family appears to have split up. 15 years old daughter Constance Annie BAUGUST is a student living with an uncle in Leicester and her sister, Margaret Helen Baugust was living with, and housekeeping for, her widowed grandfather (retired shoemaker) and her aunt (school mistress) in Leicester. It seems that in the 1911 Canadian census, John Baugust is a boarder in Assiniboia, Saskatchewan, Canada. And from later information that his parents were in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada However, their 19 years old son Ronald Henry is a Bank Clerk living at 389 Hartshill Road in Stoke on Trent as a boarder. Ronald Henry Baugust enlisted into 15th Battalion Royal Warwickshire Regiment in Birmingham and entered the “theatre of war” in France on 21 November 1915. He was killed in action on Sunday 3rd September 1916 aged 25. No known grave, but commemorated on Thiepval Memorial, Somme, France -
Pier and
Face 9A 9B and 10B.
Thiepval Memorial, Somme Historical Information On 1 July 1916, supported by a French attack to the south, thirteen divisions of Commonwealth forces launched an offensive on a line from north of Gommecourt to Maricourt. Despite a preliminary bombardment lasting seven days, the German defences were barely touched and the attack met unexpectedly fierce resistance. Losses were catastrophic and with only minimal advances on the southern flank, the initial attack was a failure. In the following weeks, huge resources of manpower and equipment were deployed in an attempt to exploit the modest successes of the first day. However, the German Army resisted tenaciously and repeated attacks and counter attacks meant a major battle for every village, copse and farmhouse gained. At the end of September, Thiepval was finally captured. The village had been an original objective of 1 July. Attacks north and east continued throughout October and into November in increasingly difficult weather conditions. The Battle of the Somme finally ended on 18 November with the onset of winter. In the spring of 1917, the German forces fell back to their newly prepared defences, the Hindenburg Line, and there were no further significant engagements in the Somme sector until the Germans mounted their major offensive in March 1918. The Thiepval Memorial, the Memorial to the Missing of the Somme, bears the names of more than 72,000 officers and men of the United Kingdom and South African forces who died in the Somme sector before 20 March 1918 and have no known grave. Over 90% of those commemorated died between July and November 1916. The memorial also serves as an Anglo-French Battle Memorial in recognition of the joint nature of the 1916 offensive and a small cemetery containing equal numbers of Commonwealth and French graves lies at the foot of the memorial.