Charles Joe and Sophronia Honeysett had six sons and they all went into the armed services. The family featured in their local newspaper, the Kent & Sussex Courier on Friday 11 May 1917, when the youngest was being called up. At the beginning of the war, the local Sussex newspapers offered to take free pictures of the young men in uniform who had signed up and published their names in a front page list. By 1917 the tone was more measured and individual families were featured, their stories described in a factual way.
The article said that their eldest son, Charles (aged 27) was in the Royal Engineers, a sapper, and had previously been wounded. On recovery he had returned to his regiment but had been listed missing. The family had only just had news of him.
Their second son, William (aged 26) was a stoker on HMS Ganges.
The third son, Jim (was 25) a Lance Corporal in The Buffs, and 
went out to France as part of the British Expeditionary Force early in the war. He had been wounded three times, and now unfit for trench duties, was guarding German prisoners.
The fourth son, Tom, had been killed at the age of 21 on 09 May 1915. He was a private in the Royal Sussex Regiment and had died as part of the assault of “Hill 60”, not far from Ypres.
The fifth son, Fred (aged 21), had been wounded twice already and had recently transferred to the Royal West Surrey Regiment.
Alfred, aged 19, had just received his call up papers.
The Honeysett Brothers’ War History
Charles was 24 when he signed up on 13th October 1914 and he was a quarryman. He joined the Royal Engineers, Kent Fortress Company as a sapper. He got dysentery in late 1915 and had been invalided to England. He was put on the army reserve list on 25 July 1919 and received a small disability pension for malaria. He received the 1914-1915 star, The British War Medal and the Victory Medal.
William’s first service date was 19 Jan 1917, he had been a cattleman before he joined the Royal Navy. He was on the Pembroke II before he moved onto The Ganges. These were both training establishments. I have seen no record of active service.
Military information about Jim (actually William James) is hard to find but he was a labourer before he enlisted. He was on the casualty list as wounded from 21st May 1915 , also from 17th August 1916 and was wounded again on 2nd Jan 1918. The Buffs were an East Kent Army Regiment and served in France & Flanders. James’ record features Etaples, where there were large medical facilities behind the lines. He went straight from the army to the Royal Airforce in April 1918 and became a batman.
Tom went out to France on 4th January 1915 and survived 4 months before being killed. He died on Hill 60 as the Germans sought to win back the hill using one of the first gas attack of the war. At this time, there was no effective defence against the gas. Hill 60 was not really a hill but a spoil tip from a nearby railway cutting. It was fought over continuously during the war as the height gave the victor an advantage in a basically flat landscape. It was completely devastated and was left as a wargrave.
Tom is commemorated on the Le Touret memorial, one of over 13,400 soldiers who died in Ypres area between October 1914 to September 1915 and who have no known grave. His family received the 1915 star, The British War Medal and the Victory Medal. There is a current archeological expedition taking place on Hill 60.
Fred signed a short service attestation at the start of January 1916 when he was 19. He started as a private in the 13th London Regiment but seems to have been transferred several times and was finally demobbed on Mar 02 1919. He received the British War Medal and the Victory Medal.
Alfred, currently no information found on Alfred’s war history. Do you know differently?
Did they survive?
In the 1939 register I’ve found the five sons and their father :-
Charles Joe is a widower, he is a retired bailiff and an inmate in an establishment in Uckfield. Alfred is also in Uckfield, he doesn’t appear to be married and he is also listed as an inmate.
Charley and wife Jane L, are listed at Tile Barn Farm, Uckfield, he is a heavyworker on the farm. This is the farm he worked on before he enlisted.
William is possibly in Tunbridge Wells, married to Agnes M.
Frederick is possibly in Lancashire married to Olive with children James & Freda (later Fisher)
Jim is possibly in Tunbridge Wells and married to Ivy.
Tracing back this Honeysett line – is it yours?
Charles Joe was born in 1865 in Guestling in East Sussex, to Joseph & Caroline Honeysett. His father Joseph was born in Stone, Kent in about 1822, but as a young man aged about 14 he was working as a labourer on a farm in Guestling. Joseph & Caroline Medlock married in 1862, stayed in Guestling and had 5 children.
Charles married Sophronia Jenner in Rye district in q2 1889, and the 1901 and 1911 censuses show they moved around on the Sussex/Kent borders and then they were in Hartfield, Sussex, during WW1. They had two daughters, Lily Flora and Annie in addition to the 6 boys.
This blog is part of the Hunnisett & Honeysett One Name Study.
Sources:
Kent & Sussex Courier – Friday 11 May 1917, British Newspapers Archive, www.bna.com
British Army War records 1914-1920 – Ancestry
www. forces-war-records.co.uk
1939 register – Findmypast or Ancestry
http://www.freebmd.org.uk/
https://www.gro.gov.uk
https://www.ww1cemeteries.com/
The first gas masks -https://simonjoneshistorian.com
6 sons went to war how many survived
That is about my grandfather Charles Honeysett and his 5 brothers Thomas was the only one who lost his life . All the other boys made it home