UGBOROUGH commemmorated the centenary of the first day of the Battle of the Somme last Friday by remembering Private Archie Joint, killed on July 1, 1916.

Two years ago the village marked the centenary of the outbreak of the First World War in August 1914 with a service in St. Peter’s Church. The Last Post and Reveille were sounded, and a memorial herb garden was dedicated in Ugborough Square.

Since then, on the anniversary of the death of every serviceman from the village in the first world war, the union flag is flown at half mast.

Private Joint served in the 9th Battalion of the Devonshire Regiment. On the first day of the famous battle, the 8th and 9th battalions of the Devonshires were ordered to advance towards Mansel Copse, where well-placed German machine guns, whose crews had survived the preliminary bombardment, cut down hundreds of advancing men.

Despite the slaughter, a German trench was taken and then held against the inevitable counter attack. On July 4, 160 officers and men of both battalions were buried at Mansel Copse, and the Chaplain of the 8th Battalion erected a plaque bearing the words: The Devonshires Held this Trench. The Devonshires Hold it Still.  

Archie Joint’s body was never found, but his name is inscribed on the Thiepval Memorial to the Missing of the Somme, as it is on the War Memorial at Rattery, South Brent, where his parents lived.

He is also remembered in the memorial book in Ugborough Church. He was 21 years old when he died.