- 438th (Cheshire) Field Company, Royal Engineers during the Great War -
Great War>Allied Army
Site Home
This website uses cookies. By continuing to use this site you agree to accept cookies.
If you enjoy this site please consider making a donation.
Great War Home
Search
Add Stories & Photos
Library
Help & FAQs
Features
Allied Army
Day by Day
RFC & RAF
Prisoners of War
War at Sea
Training for War
The Battles
Those Who Served
Hospitals
Civilian Service
Women at War
The War Effort
Central Powers Army
Central Powers Navy
Imperial Air Service
Library
World War Two
Submissions
Add Stories & Photos
Time Capsule
Information
Help & FAQs
Glossary
Volunteering
News
Events
Contact us
Great War Books
About
438th (Cheshire) Field Company, Royal Engineers
16th Oct 1915 The Derby Scheme
1st Dec 1915 Derby Scheme Armlets
11th Sep 1915 Last day of Derby Scheme Recruitment
10th Jan 1916 Group System Reopens
9th February 1916 Call Ups
21st of January 1918 A Surrender
29th of January 1918 Divisional HQ Moves
31st of January 1918 TrainingIf you can provide any additional information, please add it here.
Want to know more about the Royal Engineers?
There are:8880 items tagged Royal Engineers available in our Library
These include information on officers, regimental histories, letters, diary entries, personal accounts and information about actions during the Great War.
Those known to have served with
438th (Cheshire) Field Company, Royal Engineers
during the Great War 1914-1918.
All names on this list have been submitted by relatives, friends, neighbours and others who wish to remember them, if you have any names to add or any recollections or photos of those listed, please Add a Name to this List
Records of 438th (Cheshire) Field Company, Royal Engineers from other sources.
The Wartime Memories Project is the original WW1 and WW2 commemoration website.
- 1st of September 2024 marks 25 years since the launch of the Wartime Memories Project. Thanks to everyone who has supported us over this time.
Want to find out more about your relative's service? Want to know what life was like during the Great War? Our Library contains many many diary entries, personal letters and other documents, most transcribed into plain text.
Looking for help with Family History Research?Please see Family History FAQ's
Please note: We are unable to provide individual research.
Can you help?
The free to access section of The Wartime Memories Project website is run by volunteers and funded by donations from our visitors.If the information here has been helpful or you have enjoyed reaching the stories please conside making a donation, no matter how small, would be much appreciated, annually we need to raise enough funds to pay for our web hosting or this site will vanish from the web.
If you enjoy this site please consider making a donation.
Announcements
- 19th Nov 2024
Please note we currently have a massive backlog of submitted material, our volunteers are working through this as quickly as possible and all names, stories and photos will be added to the site. If you have already submitted a story to the site and your UID reference number is higher than 264989 your submission is still in the queue, please do not resubmit.
Wanted: Digital copies of Group photographs, Scrapbooks, Autograph books, photo albums, newspaper clippings, letters, postcards and ephemera relating to the Great War. If you have any unwanted photographs, documents or items from the First or Second World War, please do not destroy them. The Wartime Memories Project will give them a good home and ensure that they are used for educational purposes. Please get in touch for the postal address, do not sent them to our PO Box as packages are not accepted.
World War 1 One ww1 wwII greatwar great battalion regiment artillery
Did you know? We also have a section on World War Two. and a Timecapsule to preserve stories from other conflicts for future generations.
254548Sgt. Richard Eason MM & Bar. MiD. 1/1st Cheshire Field Company Royal Engineers
Richard Eason was a double Military Medal winner, for actions on the 21st of October 1916 and 12th of March 1917. He was also Mentioned in Dispatches and Wounded. He was a Member of the R.A.O.B.Steve Parsons
245864Gnr. Joseph Patrick Cavanagh 131st Hvy.Bty. Royal Garrison Artillery (d.21st March 1918 )
Joseph Patrick Cavanagh was the fourth son, one of at least ten children of Thomas and Mary Cavanagh of Birkenhead. He was born in the second quarter of 1886 and married Sarah Fewtrell of Neston in Liverpool on 25 July 1904 at the Church of Our Lady and St Nicholas, Liverpool.Joseph, then of Bridge Street, Neston; first enlisted in Birkenhead in November 1914, joining the Cheshire Field Company, Royal Engineers before transferring to the 438th 1st (Cheshire) Field Company Royal Engineers TF which was allocated to the 3rd Division. His Service No. was then 446445. Killed at the age of 32 on 21 March 1918 Joseph Cavanagh left a wife, Sarah, and four children.
In February/March 1918, Sarah:-
- lost her daughter, Mary Elizabeth (aged 7) - she was buried on 21 February, exactly one month before Joseph was killed.
- lost her husband, Joseph, who was killed in France on 21 March.
- gave birth to a daughter, Sarah Winifred, on 24 March, three days after Joseph was killed.
The Birkenhead Advertiser carried the following:
A HERO’S FATE : NESTON GUNNER KILLED
We regret to announce the death of Gunner J. Cavannagh, Royal Garrison Artillery, of Cottage Close, Neston, who was killed in action on the 21st ult. Great sympathy is extended to Mrs Cavannagh and her six little ones. The following letter has been received from Gunner Cavannagh’s Battery Commander:
On behalf of the battery I wish to sympathise with you in the loss of your husband, who was killed on the 21st March during a heavy bombardment. The battery had to remain on the guns in spite of the enemy shell-fire in order to support the infantry. Your husband was working a gun that had already been knocked out of action twice. He and two others were all that were left of the detachment, but they were carrying on, firing the gun as fast as was possible when another shell came and killed Gunner Cavannagh, who was within a yard of me at the time. He died immediately. I regret to say we were unable to get any of his personal effects to send back to you. All who knew him feel the loss of a friend. He was very plucky, could laugh in spite of danger, and was always willing to work till exhausted and ever cheerful in spite of rain, mud and bad billets.
Ian L. Norris
Recomended Reading.
Available at discounted prices.
Links
Suggest a link
The free section of The Wartime Memories Project is run by volunteers. This website is paid for out of our own pockets, library subscriptions and from donations made by visitors. The popularity of the site means that it is far exceeding available resources and we currently have a huge backlog of submissions. If you are enjoying the site, please consider making a donation, however small
to help with the costs of keeping the site running.
Copyright MCMXCIX - MMXXIV - All Rights Reserved - We do not permit the use of any content from this website for the training of LLMs or for use in Generative AI, it also may not be scraped for the purpose of creating other websites. |