The September edition of Gainsborough Life contained an article by the ‘Friends of Gainsborough Cemetery and Chapel’ about their exhibition of photographs of Gainsborough soldiers who died in WWI, which will be mounted in the Cemetery Chapel over remembrance weekend, on 10th and 11th November.
The article included a request for information about Private Walter Baines. Just a few weeks later the Friends were contacted by Walter’s grandson, John Baines, who lives in Canada. For years John has been trying to find out more about his grandfather’s story. John sent this photograph which shows Walter with his two sons, John on the left (his uncle) and Richard on the right (his father). Walter was born in Gainsborough in 1886 and became a barber, he married Gertrude Easter in 1908 and they had two sons. Gertrude died in 1914 and is buried in the General Cemetery. Walter joined the Lincolnshire Regiment in April 1915, but after three months was discharged on medical grounds. He was not put off because in October 1915 he re-enlisted. His sons were cared for by the Gainsborough Poor Law Guardians. While he was in France, Walter suffered badly from frost bite and trench feet, was brought back to England in November 1917 and had to have seven of his toes amputated including the two big ones. The photograph was taken while Walter was in hospital in Cardiff and his two boys were brought to see him — they pleaded not to be sent back to Gainsborough. For a time, the two boys stayed in Cardiff before they came into the care of Dr. Barnardo’s and later the boys were sent to work on farms in Canada. When Walter was discharged from the army in July 1918 he was described as a broken man and was hardly able to speak. In June 1920, he was found drowned in the Trent at East Stockwith, an article in the local paper said he “had been in depressed spirits for some considerable time, owing to the fear of having to go into hospital again.”
The photograph will form part of the ‘Friends’ exhibition to be held in Gainsborough Cemetery Chapel detailed above. There will also be cemetery walks showing over 50 headstones with inscriptions remembering WWI soldiers that have been restored by the ‘Friends’. Book five in the series ‘Gainsborough’s War Story’, by Peter Bradshaw, will also be available. It contains all the photographs in the exhibition and an updated Gainsborough Roll of Honour naming 566 men who died during WWI.