1899 – 1916
Reuben Henry was born to Henry and Leah Maud Knight in spring 1899, a brother for Leah Marian (later known as Minnie) who was 2 years older. Henry was from Ufton Nervet and was then a hay baler, whilst Leah was born in Plumstead, London. Another sister, Elsie, arrived in 1901, but in 1904 Reuben’s mother Leah died.
Two years after that, Henry re-married, to Eva, and they in turn had another son, also Henry, in 1907. In 1911 they lived in Clematis Cottage, School Lane and Reuben was at Silchester School, along with Minnie (Leah) and Elsie, under head teacher Miss Thatcher.
Reuben was still only 16 when he went to Camberley and signed up on 22nd March 1915 to join the Queen’s Royal West Surrey Regiment, which meant he was under age.
He was part of the 5th battalion which was a reserve/training battalion. On the 1st September 1916 he and 23 colleagues were transferred into the 6th battalion of the London Regiment (City of London Rifles) and travelled out to France. They joined their battalion on the Somme, between Bazentin-le-Petit and Fleurs.
Attack and counter-attack for an area known as High Wood had been going on for some months, and Reuben will have been part of the attack on the 15th September which finally captured High Wood, but with significant losses amongst his colleagues and officers.
Three weeks later, the City of London Rifles were a couple of miles further north in trenches near a group of farm buildings at Eaucourt l’Abbaye, in the vicinity of the Le Sars – Warlencourt road. Their War Diary for 8th October – a record hand written that evening by a junior officer and then signed off by a senior officer – records “During the day the enemy continually shelled our front trench causing a number of casualties: 2 Lt R McDonald wounded, 85 other ranks wounded, 20 other ranks killed”. Reuben Knight was one of those killed.
Reuben is remembered on the Thiepval Memorial to the Missing of the Somme, along with 72,245 other missing British and South African servicemen.
