Francis was the eldest son of Mr. Joshua and Kate Brookbanks, of No. 33, Wellington Rd., Dudley. He had former service in the 1st/5th Bn London Regt – The London Rifle Brigade.

A family of the middling sort, the head of the household was the manager of an anvil and vice manufacturers, whilst his two sons were both bank clerks.

According to the Dudley Herald he was a prominent churchman, associated with St Luke’s in Wellington Rd, Dudley (closed in 1972), and was Scoutmaster of the 1st Dudley Patrol; he worked as a Ledger Clerk in the St Paul’s Square, Birmingham branch for Barclays Bank.

His uniformed service did not have to wait until he joined the Army: during the first weeks of the war he was responsible for guarding the water reservoir at Shavers End with his scouts night and day, turn and turn about with the 3rd Patrol, to prevent contamination of Dudley’s water supply by enemy agents. A dozen scouts were on duty, camped on the Wren’s Nest (an SSSI and UNESCO Global Geopark).

When he left to join the army in the summer of 1916 the Dudley Herald reported that he had been presented with a leather writing case by the troop.

Captured by the Germans at St Quentin on 21st March 1918 – Der Kaiserschlact – he died as a Prisoner of War, aged 35, on 15th July 1918 in a German field hospital in Foreste; after the war his body was exhumed and re-buried in the nearby Savy British Cemetery, located to the south-west of St Quentin. “Greater love hath no man - R.I.P.”

A bachelor, he is remembered on Dudley's civic war memorial in Priory St, and also on the Dudley Grammar School memorial; he also had a memorial tablet in the now demolished St Luke’s in Wellington Road.

His death was also minuted in the Barclay’s Board of Directors minute book, and it was resolved that their sympathy be conveyed to his relatives. His mother retired to Chipping Norton after the war.

Source: This is an extract from the book “Dudley’s 1914-1918 war memorial and the men commemorated” by J. B. E. Hale.