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Rock, Herbert T

Herbert Taylor Rock was born in 1886. He was the second child of William Edwin and Lois Jane Rock. (She had been Lois Jane Perry before her marriage). His baptism was recorded in Sherborne Parish Dorsetshire on the 26th November 1886. (We have been told that the name Taylor had its origins in a previous generation when John Rock, a farmer from Buckinghamshire   married into to a family of Plough makers – Taylors of Warwickshire).

Herbert first appeared on a census in 1891  The family was living in Pool Tail Cottage, Swinfen Hall, Staffordshire. Head of the household was William Edwin Rock who was a 31 year old gamekeeper/ domestic servant. His wife was Lois Rock, 32. Their listed children at that time were Ethel 6yrs, Herbert 4yrs, Cecil and Gladys were 2 and May was 5 months.

The 1901 census records the family living at 10, Cook Lane, Doveridge, Derby. Another five children had come along (Jessie. Annie, William, Violet and Edith).  William Edwin was again listed as a gamekeeper. We know from his army records that Herbert attended Derby County School but he had left home by 1901 and was working as a 14 year old house servant in the home of Mr Francis Clarke, a solicitor who lived with his family  in a house called ‘Beechcroft’ which was in Lichfield, Staffordshire.

Lois Rock, the mother of this large family died at the age of 45 in 1905. Her death was recorded in Uttoxeter, Staffordshire (Vol 6b page 219).

The 1911 census records the family living in Breedon on The Hill, in the district of Melbourne in Ashby Z. William Rock, Gamekeeper was 50 and was a widower. The listed ‘children’ in the household were Herbert T who was 25 and an unemployed carpenter. Gladys was 23 and was the housekeeper. Florence 13, Edith 11 and Gerald 9 were all at school.

In 1913, William Edwin remarried. He married Mary Metcalf  in Ellesmere Shropshire (Vol 6a page 1441).

We know that at some point between 1911 and 1915 Herbert Taylor Rock left the UK for Australia and that his father and his family moved to The Tenant Farm in Soughton, (Sychdyn).

Many thanks to Herbert’s nephew and namesake Mr Herbert Rock (The son of Gerald Henry Rock) for supplying us with some family information and the photograph of Herbert Taylor that we have reproduced on this page. 

The rest of Herbert’s story comes from his Australian army records.
He enlisted in a town called Cootamunda which is in New South Wales. He was by then aged 28years and 10 months. His occupation was listed as a carpenter and he was unmarried.  He named his father, William Edwin Rock who now lived at the Tenant Farm, Soughton, Mold, North Wales as his next of kin.

His army records include his attestation paper on which he swore and signed an oath of loyalty to the army. His medical Examination Certificate lists all the diseases and ailments he didn’t have. He is described as 5 ft 10 inches tall with a 36 inch chest, fair complexion, grey eyes with light brown hair. His religion was Cof E. Herbert consented to be inoculated against smallpox and enteric fever. The medical officer considered him fit for service.

On 15th January 1916 Herbert embarked on ‘RMS Osterley’ at Sydney and set sail for Egypt where he was initially based at Zeitoun which is a district of Cairo and was where the Australian military had a training camp. On the 6th March he was moved to serve in Tel el Kebir. Three months later he left Egypt on the ‘Kinfaint Castle’ which sailed from Alexandria and landed in Marseilles on the 8th June 1916. Herbert had arrived in France and within a very short time he was in the north fighting in the Battle of the Somme.

He was promoted ‘in the field’ to Lance Corporal 0n the 30th July 1916 and about three weeks later became a temporary Corporal because 1604 Corporal Butler was sick. Nine days later Herbert was ‘Killed in Action’

The details on this page have been gathered from the National Archives census collections UKhttp://www.ancestry.co.uk

and the Australian National Archives http://www.naa.gov.au

  • Herbert Taylor Rock

  • Herbert photographed (we think) before he went to Australia

  • 31st August 1916

    The above cable communication from London, we believe was sent to the military authorities in Australia, formally reporting Herbert’s death.

  • Little wonder that this letter had difficulties finding its way to Mr W E Rock, Soughton, Near Mold, North Wales. We don’t know what was in it.

  • Herbert’s worldly effects

  • Yet again, the army made mistakes with the address and also the name of Herbert’s father

  • William Edwin completed this postcard, confirming he had received the package containing his son’s possessions.

  • 15th September 2008

    Visit to Villers- Bretonneux Memorial. Almost every cemetery or memorial that we visited this week had someone working there. In some cases it was grass cutting or tending flower beds in others there was more substantial maintenance work as in this case. As you see from our photograph the large square tower that forms the centrepiece of the Memorial was covered in scaffolding for cleaning and essential maintenance work. This is the Australian National Memorial which commemorates all Australian servicemen who fought in the First World War, those who died and especially those with no known grave. At the foot of the tower, three walls contain the names of 10,770 of these soldiers.
    This was the fourth Memorial we saw that week, designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens

  • The Memorial stands in the grounds of the Villers-Bretonneux Cemetery and this photograph is taken from the memorial looking towards the cemetery. There are 2,141 Commonwealth servicemen of the First World War buried or commemorated in the cemetery. 608 are ‘Known unto God’ ( unidentified). The site overlooks the vast, flat plains of the Somme, now tranquil, rural and agricultural.

  • Herbert Taylor Rock was named on one of the walls bemeath the Memorial. We found it easily as they are arranged by regiment and rank. We wrote in the Visitors’ Book,
    ‘In memory of Herbert Rock, a lad from Sychdyn, Flintshire, N Wales, who went to live in Australia. Hedd Perfaith Hedd’


Learn more about the other soldiers on the Soughton (Sychdyn) Memorial

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