Royal Air Force
Guy Workman was born in Forest Green, Nailsworth in the fourth quarter of 1883, the fourth son of Charles and Elizabeth Workman.
On 27 June 1906 he married Evelyn Cugley at the Dominican Priory Church, Woodchester and the couple had two children, Raymond Eric, born in 1907 and Florence Winifred born in 1910.
The family cannot be traced on the 1911 Census which may have indicated that they were living abroad and Guy’s pre-war occupation is unknown.
Evidently there is an article in the Stroud News of October 1914 which states that Guy was in Belgium at the start of war and was ‘held up by the Germans’ and that he later ‘joined Lord Kitchener’s Army’. This article has not been examined and there is no trace of a Medal Index Card, or Army Service Record (although about 60% of these were totally lost in the London Blitz of 1940), so any military service prior to his joining the Royal Air Force (RAF) cannot be verified.
There is a record of his service with the RAF in a file in the National Archives (AIR 76/561). This indicated he was appointed Second Lieutenant in the RAF on 21 September 1918 and joined 155 Squadron on 9 November 1918.
The squadron was based at Chingford, Essex, prior to a planned deployment to France on 21 November 1918, however, this was cancelled due to the Armistice. It appears that he was posted to France at a later date, based at St Omer awaiting deployment on 14 April 1919.
He joined 58 Squadron at Heliopolis, Egypt on 3 May 1919.
It appears he was repatriated to the RAF Hospital, Eaton Square, London on 14 October 1919 and thereafter to RAF Hospital, Finchley.
On 3 January 1920 he was admitted to Tor-na-Dee Sanatorium at Cults, near Aberdeen and this was reserved for officers and nurses returning from the Great War with tuberculosis. He died there on 6 May 1920, aged 37.
His grave is marked with a standard CWGC headstone and he is also commemorated on the Nailsworth War Memorial and on a panel at the Woodchester Wayside Cross.
His widow never re-married and died in Gloucestershire in 1975.
Research by Graham Adams 12 October 2013