Maria Thorley nee Wallbank. Also commemorated here is her son
Samuel Ernest Thorley.
Maria Thorley nee Wallbank came from a large family in the north of the county. She was born on 25 November 1868 in Polesworth, the middle child of three of parents Samuel Wallbank, a coalminer, and his wife Sarah Ann. She was baptised there on 16 May 1869.Sadly Sarah Ann died in 1874 - she was buried along with her 16-day-old daughter Betsey - and Maria was just 6 years old. Her father was married again in 1879 - to Sarah Ann's sister Ann. Two more children were born before she, too, died and Samuel married for a third time, going on to have seven more children. Thus Maria had two stepmothers, the first being her aunt. Not surprisingly she went to work early, and by 1891 was working as a domestic servant in Atherstone.
On 4 October 1892 she married
John Thorley,(
E 14. 4) a police constable, at Polesworth. By the time their first child was born, the following year, they were living in Nuneaton. John's job meant that he would often transfer to another area, and by mid-1901 they had moved to Bishop's Tachbrook; by 1905 they were in Stoneleigh, where the last of their six children, Una, was born in 1908.
Maria lived to the great age of 88, and died on 28 March 1957, her last address being Stone Cottage, Stoneleigh, which was one of the Reading Room Cottages. Her daughter
Ida who died at the early age of just 23 is buried alongside her at
E 14.2. Commemorated with Maria is her son
Samuel Ernest Thorley.
Samuel Ernest Thorley (known as Ernest) was the son of
John and Maria Thorley (nee Wallbank). Born on 3 October 1894, he was one of six children - three boys and three girls - and both his brothers, Jack and George, served in the war. Their father John was the Stoneleigh policeman for many years, the family having moved from Nuneaton via Bishops Tachbrook as John's profession dictated. They lived in the police house in Birmingham Road and later at London Lodge (now known as Tantara).
Ernest attended Stoneleigh School from September 1903 and left to become a garden boy. He later became a mechanical engineer in a machine tool factory, but enlisted quickly at the outbreak of war, in Nuneaton. He joined the 9th Bn the Royal Warwickshire Regiment, number 2593, and by May 1915 was on his way to the Dardanelles, according to Cordelia Leigh. After August 10th the 9th Battalion occupied a 150 yard line of trenches at Gallipoli, an area which was open to sniper fire; this may have been how he sustained his fatal wounds. Witnessed by fellow soldiers from Stoneleigh, as he fell he suffered a fracture to the base of his skull and was taken by transport ship to Cairo, where he died of his wounds on August 25th.
Ernest's grave was, initially, marked by a simple cross which had been paid for by Cordelia Leigh. She corresponded with the regimental chaplain and arranged for the cross to be made and photographed so that Ernest's mother could see his last resting-place. In addition a memorial certificate was specifically inscribed. His Commonwealth War Grave, in the Cairo War Memorial Cemetery, is Reference D62. he is commemorated along with his mother here at Stoneleigh. See also
M 0 2