Private HENRY JOHN PAYNE
68, Brassey Road, Winchester
Service number 85422. 123rd Company, Machine Gun Corps
Killed in action, Belgium, 5 August 1917
Life Summary
Henry John Payne was born in Compton, near Wantage, Berkshire, in April 1887. One of ten children, he was brought up in Berkshire but moved to Winchester shortly after marrying in 1915. He worked as a grocer and joined the Machine Gun Corps in late 1916. He was killed the following year during the Third Battle of Ypres, better known as Passchendaele.
Family Background
Henry’s parents, David and Martha Payne, were also born in Compton, as were his grandparents and siblings. David Payne (1850-1934) was the son of a journeyman blacksmith, also named David (born 1823), and his wife Caroline, (1822). David Payne Snr died some time before 1871, leaving his widow and young son living in Ilsley Road, Compton.
David Payne Jnr, who was already working as an iron moulder, married Martha in around 1873 and a daughter, Hannah, was born the following year. Martha went on to give birth to a further nine children: Charles (1875), Miriam (1877), Rose (1878), Lilian (1880), William (1882), Albert (1884), Lewis or Louis (1886), Henry (1887) and Ethel (1891).
In 1881 the family, who were Primitive Methodists, lived in Holey Road, Compton, where they remained for several years before moving within the village to 2, East Ilsley Road. The 1901 Census recorded William Payne working as an iron moulder like his father. Lewis, meanwhile, was a blacksmith and Albert a gardener. Daughter Rose was working as a barmaid (unusually, perhaps, for a Primitive Methodist) while Henry and Ethel were at school.
By 1911, Henry Payne had left Compton and was lodging with chimney cleaner Darius Husband and his wife at their home in Blossom End, Beale, near Reading. In that year’s census Henry was listed as a grocer’s assistant. In 1915 Henry married 32-year-old Edith Gutteridge in her hometown of Wallingford, Berkshire (now Oxfordshire), and by the following year the couple had moved to 68, Brassey Road, Winchester (the address then and now).
Great War Record
On 17 November 1915 Henry attested for military service under the Derby Scheme. This system had been introduced by the Minister for War, Lord Derby, as an attempt to solve the Army’s manpower crisis. Under the scheme, men ‘attested’ their willingness to serve at a future date if called upon to do so. It was promoted as a half-way house between the old voluntary system of recruitment and conscription, which many opposed because, they argued, it infringed an individual’s freedom to choose not to fight.
68, Brassey Road, Winchester – Henry Payne moved here in 1916
Henry’s attestation form reveals that he was assigned to the 35th Battalion, Training Reserve with a service number that appears to be 8/81139 (it is barely legible). The form was later updated when Henry joined the Machine Gun Corps (MGC) on 4 December 1916.
The gap of more than a year between his attestation and assignment to a fighting unit is unusual. However, married men who attested under the Derby Scheme had been promised that they would not be called up until the pool of able-bodied single men had been exhausted.
Henry Payne (service number 85422) was assigned to 123rd Company, MGC which served with the 41st Division from 1916. The MGC had been formed in October 1915 and quickly earned the nickname ‘The Suicide Club’, not simply because of its high casualty rates but also in recognition of the heroism shown by many machine-gun teams.
Shortly after the formation of the MGC, the Army replaced its obsolete Maxim machine guns with the Vickers, which became a standard gun for the next 50 years. The Vickers was fired from a tripod and cooled by water held in a jacket around the barrel. The gun weighed 28lbs, the tripod 20lbs and the water another 10lbs. Two men were needed to carry the equipment and two the ammunition. Each Vickers machine gun team also had two spare men. The gun fired a maximum of 500 rounds per minute.
After completing his training, Henry Payne transferred to the Western Front in 1917. The 41st Division, formed as part of Lord Kitchener’s Fifth New Army, first saw action that year at the Battle of Messines (7-14 June) in Flanders. Today the battle is mostly remembered for the detonation of 19 huge mines beneath the German front line. The 41st Division remained in Flanders for the Third Battle of Ypres (31 July-10 November), better known as Passchendaele. The 123rd Machine Gun Company fought in the Battle of Pilckem Ridge which opened the campaign on 31 July. For five days 41st Division attacked north of the Ypres-Commines Canal before being relieved on 4 August. Henry was killed in action the following day, aged 38, although the exact location of his death is unknown. His body was never found.
Family after the Great War
After the war, Henry’s widow Edith continued to live at 68, Brassey Road until 1935. In 1942, at the age of 59, she married 23-year-old Douglas Smith who was from her hometown of Wallingford. It is not known when she died.
Medals and Memorials for Henry John Payne
Private Henry John Payne was entitled to the British War Medal and the Victory Medal. He is remembered on the Ypres (Menin Gate) Memorial (Panel 35) and on the memorials at St Matthew’s and St Paul’s churches, Winchester. His name also appears on the memorial at the Primitive Methodist Chapel in Parchment Street, Winchester.