11th Battalion Cheshire Regiment
At Great Rissington Church there is a picture frame containing the photographs of the five brothers from the village who were killed during the Great War. The sons of William and Annie Souls – Albert, Walter, Frederick, Alfred and Arthur all died within two years of each other; Alfred and Arthur were identical twins born an hour apart and died five days apart.
The older boys, Frederick, Alfred and Arthur enlisted originally in the 16th Cheshire Regiment, a bantam battalion raised to take recruits otherwise too small for the army.
Alfred transferred from the 16th to the 11th Cheshires who were reduced to 100 men – one tenth of their normal numbers, in the early days of the Somme. They suffered appalling casualties at Messines Ridge and Ypres in 1917 and were in the thick of the action in the German Spring Offensive of 1918. This is where Alfred lost his life – he was killed in action on 20 April 1918 aged 31. He is buried in Strand Military Cemetery.