Service Life:

Campaigns:

• The First World War 1914-1918, World-wide.

Accidents were a minor factor in the casualty list. Our definition is deaths resulting from activities that were not directly associated with 'active service'. We have excluded Naval Accidents which are seperately identified because of their numbers and impact. Many accidents involved the aviators, operating at the the limits of technology.

Detail :

Walter Edwin BRADLEY, DSM was a Chief Petty Officer in the Royal Naval Air Service and died 10th Dec 1916 in a seaplane accident, age 23. Walter was initiated on 4th November, just one month before his death. He was a passenger in a Short Admitalty 184 type seaplane, flown by Flight Lieut John Douglas Hume, that dived into sea from a considerable height whilst on patrol near the Tongue Light Vessel. He was a Wireless Engineer in civilian life. His DSM was Gazeted on 1/10/1917 The 1921 Masonic Roll of Honour lists him as a Private. There is a plaque in the Temple of Commercial Temperance Lodge in Windsor, Berkshire inscribed with the names of those members of the lodge who served during the Great War, with the two of them identified as killed. One is Walter BRADLEY. In 1916 Grand Lodge asked all Lodges to subscribe to the ' Xmas Puddings for the Troops at the front' fund. Initially agreeing to this, Commercial Temperance afterwards adopted a more personal approach by sending a one guinea (?40) hamper for each of its serving members on the front line. Sgt. Frogley. a recipient of a hamper, wrote to the lodge saying that his men welcomed the touch of home comfort that the hamper's arrival gave them. The lodge also subscribed to the following charities; HRH the princess Mary's Sailors & Soldiers Christams fund (1915), National Committee for relief in Belgium Fund (1915) YMCA war emergency fund The Lord Roberts Memorial fund for disabled Soldiers & Sailors Wounded Allies Relief fund British Red Cross Belgium Masonic Relief fund Ruhleten (Germany) Civilian Internment Camp Smokes for Soldiers & Sailors Masonic Million Memorial Fund ( for the Masonic Peace memorial ) Sources; Chris Kingdon David Barnes

Masonic :

Source :

The project globally acknowledges the following as sources of information for research across the whole database:

• The Commonwealth War Graves Commission
• The (UK) National Archives
• Ancestry.co.uk - Genealogy, Family Trees & Family History online
• ugle.org.uk - The records of the United Grand Lodge of England including the Library and Museum of Freemasonry

Additional Source:

• Founder Researchers : Paul Masters & Mike McCarthy
• Researcher : Bruce Littley