Last days of a young Shropshire soldier who fell 110 years ago

In another he is seen in the trenches, where death lurked for anybody who rose above the parapet. He is on the right, together with an unidentified officer.

It may have been the last photo ever taken of him, as he was killed in action 110 years ago, on September 15, 1916, just one soldier of many thousands to lose their lives in the great battle on the Somme. He was 21, and is buried at the Guards’ Cemetery, Lesboeufs, France.

According to information held by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission Private Barker was the son of Mrs Helen Jones, of Mousecroft Cottage, Nobold, Shrewsbury.

He was six feet tall, and had been to Meole Brace School and then joined the post office in Shrewsbury as a telegraph boy before joining up. He served in the 2nd Battalion of the Scots Guards.

The photo was loaned to us years ago by his niece, Mrs Joan Carswell, of Meole Brace, who told us at the time: "It's very rare as they weren't allowed to take photographs of soldiers in the trenches.

"If you notice, he is missing a finger and a thumb, which must have been shot off. They sent him back into the trenches as long as he could still pull the trigger."

She said that on that fateful day all those years ago he had been shot in the groin and she believed he bled to death.

His death merited a short mention in the Wellington Journal & Shrewsbury News, which gave a slightly different death date of September 16.

The paper said that he "went to France with the Scots Guards in October 1914. Lieutenant Hocker, writing to the parents speaks of him as 'a splendid fellow' and says that he was liked by officers and comrades. He had been recommended for a commission, having shown great ability. He was wounded in March 1915, at Neuve Chapelle."

A puzzle was later highlighted about the trenches picture. After examining the photo Mr Claude R Hart, of Burton Street, Shrewsbury, contacted us to say that neither of the soldiers was in the Scots Guards.

“The young officer on the left appears to have five buttons on the cuffs of his tunic, denoting that he is in the Welsh Guards. Details of his tunic pockets and other uniform distinctions seem to confirm this assumption,” he told us.

“The collar badge on Private Roger Barker denotes his being a member of the Machine Gun Corps."

Although the detail of his collar badge is hard to make out, it may indeed comprise the crossed machine guns and crown of the MGC. However the contemporary Wellington Journal, the 1916 casualty list, and information held by the CWGC all has him in the Scots Guards, and of course that posed picture also shows him in Scots Guards uniform.

Another conundrum is how the photo came to be taken in the trenches when it was generally forbidden. The answer must be that either it was authorised or, perhaps more likely, the photo ban was simply flouted.