Nothing demonstrates the great loss of life from World War One more so than the story of an ordinary family in the heart of the English countryside who lost five of their sons in combat.
The Souls family of six sons were like any other. Nothing special or unique, just a willingness to fight, a sense of duty and patriotic valour which was replicated up and down the British Isles.
Their story and countless others like them was one of sacrifice in the face of an unprecedented threat.
The number of deaths incurred during World War One surpassed what anyone thought possible. During the infamous Battle of the Somme, on just the first day around 19,000 British soldiers died.
During the entirety of the war 6% of the adult male population perished, resulting in a dramatic census result in 1921 which saw 109 women for every 100 men. This death toll not only had a massive demographic impact on society and the economics of the country, but also on a deeper personal level meant that death became an ordinary part of life for families across the country.
In the picturesque countryside of Gloucestershire, a memorial stands in testament to the local men of the village who were killed in the First World War. At Great Rissington, thirteen members of the village never returned, five of these belonged to one family, the Souls family.
William Souls was a farm labourer who was married to Annie and had a large family of six sons and three daughters. The Souls siblings grew up in the pretty Gloucestershire countryside, living in a cottage opposite the village green.
The sons, like their father, worked as farm labourers at the local manor house but when war broke out in 1914, they did not hesitate to volunteer and make their contribution to the war effort.
The five oldest brothers went to war but never returned, whilst the sixth brother, Percy, who was too young to go, passed away from meningitis at home.
When war broke out in 1914, Albert and Walter were the first to sign up and soon joined the 2nd Battalion of the Worcestershire Regiment whilst the older brothers Fred, alongside identical twins Arthur and Alfred enlisted in the 16th Battalion of the Cheshire Regiment as a result of their small stature.
Frederick, Albert and Walter Souls. With kind permission, The Church of St John’s Great Rissington.
The 16th Cheshires were made up what was known as the ‘bantam’ regiments of men who were fit and able, but shorter than the standard army requirement of 5ft 3 inches.
By the following year, Albert and Walter were travelling to France alongside their comrades however very quickly they discovered the harsh realities of war. They were soon surrounded by death and forced to survive in appalling conditions. In September 1915, the two brothers first experience of conflict was the Battle of Loos.
On 25th September 1915, the Allies had planned to launch a new join attack with the French in Champagne and Artois whilst the British were at Loos.
The soldiers involved were comprised of volunteers like Albert and Walter, reservists and territorial soldiers, none of whom had much experience to speak of and were woefully unprepared for the dire reality of trench warfare.
The battle was the first time that chlorine gas was used by the British, however it was not used with good effect and the weather conditions hindered its usage causing some of the gas to blow back towards their own trenches.
Whilst the British had succeeded in an early breakthrough, penetrating enemy positions, supply and reinforcement delays hindered their progress and by the end of the month the Germans had forced the British back.
This failure forced Field Marshal Sir John French to resign and cost the men significantly in casualties with the British Army suffering over 50,000 casualties, twice as many as the Germans.
Fortunately, Albert and Walter were not on the list of casualties and alongside other surviving members of the regiment, earned praise for their bravery. A month later, the regiment would be paraded in front of King George V.
The following year, Albert and Walter transferred to the Machine Gun Corps and began their training.
The unit was newly assembled as a result of the realisation that more effective machine gun usage was required on the Western Front.
On 14th March 1916, the 5th Brigade Machine Gun Corps suffered one casualty, sadly it was Albert. The first of Annie Souls’ sons to lose his life.
A few months later Walter, now without the comforting presence of his brother, participated in one of the major battles of World War One, the Battle of the Somme.
The Battle of the Somme was a joint operation between British and French forces with the aim of securing a strategic victory over the Germans on the Western Front. Instead, it became infamous for its brutality and lead to over a million casualties.
The battle began on 1st July 1916 and concluded on 18th November 1916, leaving behind a memory of death and destruction that would go down in history as one of the worst episodes of the First World War.
After struggling with a battlefield stalemate, a ‘big push’ was planned on the Western Front. Whilst Britain was keen to attack Belgium, the French wanted an operation to take place where the two armies met. This happened to be the River Somme, a 25 mile stretch of the front in northern France.
As a result of the German attack on the French at Verdun, Britain decided to launch their attack on the Somme earlier than originally planned, in order to relieve the besieged city. In the end however, after incurring a huge death toll, very little territorial gain was made and the German position was hard to penetrate. Despite the use of massive artillery bombardment and the first use of tanks of the battlefield, British troops advancement into ‘no-man’s land’ was met with heavy machine gunfire from enemy lines.
On 19th July 1916, Fred Souls went over the top with his 16th Cheshires unit but never returned.
Meanwhile, Walter incurred a serious injury at the Somme and as a result, was transported to a hospital in Rouen where he underwent treatment for a wound on his left leg. After coming through the surgery, he wrote a postcard in his hospital bed but not long afterwards suddenly took a turn for the worst and passed away the following day from a blood clot in the heart.
Alfred and Arthur Souls. With kind permission, The Church of St John’s Great Rissington.
His mother received a telegram detailing the events in the hospital in addition to the postcard which Walter was never able to send.
Meanwhile, Alf Souls who was with the 11th Cheshires witnessed the loss of many of his comrades during the intense days of fighting in the Battle of the Somme. Yet more casualties were incurred at Messines Ridges and Ypres.
In the spring of 1918, the Germans launched a great offensive which saw the 11th Cheshires caught up in the attack.
The unit had fallen back almost 40 miles in just 2 days and stopped six times in order to defend, however by the end, only a handful of survivors remained and sadly Alf was not one of them. Alf Souls was one of the casualties of this last ditch German effort and was killed on 20th April 1918.
The last brother to pass away was Arthur Souls who by now was serving as a lance corporal with the 7th Royal West Kents. The unit were forced to hold the Villers-Bretonneux plateau which resulted in many deaths, casualties and many men missing in action. Arthur Souls was one of the names of this list and received acknowledgement for his bravery with the award of the Military Medal.
His body and more than 500 other soldiers was buried in Hangard Communal Cemetery.
By the end of the war, Annie and William Souls had lost all five sons who had left home to fight. With the first three dying in combat in 1916, the final two deaths in the last year of the war and the loss of one declared missing in action was too much to bear for their grieving mother.
Annie Souls had kept a candle burning in the window with the hope that her missing son Fred might appear, sadly he never did. The shilling a week pension for each dead son was no compensation for poor Mrs Souls.
Memorial. With kind permission, The Church of St John’s, Great Rissington.
Five men, one family, were never to be reunited. Their story and many others like them demonstrate the tragic loss of life in World War One and the enormous scale of the tragedy, etched into the landscapes where they fought, the hearts of those left behind and the memory of its survivors.
Jessica Brain is a freelance writer specialising in history. Based in Kent and a lover of all things historical.
Published: 30th October 2025
