Walter Arthur Skemer (1880-1915)
Labourer, Central Parks
Walter was born in 1880 in Sudbury, Suffolk to Thomas, an agricultural labourer and Jane Skemer. At one-year-old Walter was living at Chapel Street, Cavendish, Suffolk with his parents, brother and three sisters. In 1906 Walter married Kate Christiana Taylor at Paddington and in 1911 they were living at 9 Stanley Street, Paddington. By then Walter was employed as a contractor’s carman and had two children; Dennis Berthold and Mabel. Between then and 1915 Walter joined the Office of Works in the Central Parks as a labourer and was living at 97 Earl Street, Marylebone.
No trace can be found of Walter’s military records. However, it is known he was serving with D/182nd (howitzer) Battery, 57th Brigade, Royal Field Artillery, which was made up of four, four-gun batteries named A, B, C and D; Walter was attached to D Battery. This battery was formed as part of Kitchener’s New Army early in 1915 and was attached to the 10th (Irish) Division. At 5.00 pm on 30 July A and D Brigades received orders to be ready to embark for operations in the Mediterranean. Two days later they left Cowshot Camp near Brookwood, Surrey and boarded trains at Aldershot sidings for Southampton Docks. The route took them across the channel to Le Havre and then by train to Marseilles where they embarked on the P&O liner SS Kalyan for the Gallipoli campaign. D Battery landed at Suvla Bay, which is located on the opposite side of the peninsula from the Dardanelles strait, on 17 August. Once landed it took 70 men all night on each gun to haul the battery up the hill and into position. At 7.30 am on 28 August D Battery fired its first salvo of the campaign. Although the Allies’ occupation of the beaches of Gallipoli lasted barely nine months, it included the malaria season of 1915 and the Gallipoli Campaign was particularly noted for its high number of malaria cases along with other tropical diseases. Of the 480,000 Allied troops on Gallipoli, 90,000 were evacuated due to sickness, many due to malaria. It was probably here that Corporal 34708 Walter Arthur Skemer contracted malaria and was transported back to Britain.
On 14 December 1915 Walter died and was buried at Kensal Green (All Souls) Cemetery with a reference 213.7.8 (screen wall).
