Francis Hastings Poncia born in the September quarter of 1894 in Eccleshall Bierlow, Sheffield, West Riding of Yorkshire, the only child of Stanley Poncia and his wife Jane (née Hastings). His father, born in Warwickshire in 1866, and his mother, born in Cheltenham in 1870, married in 1893 in Cheltenham.  His mother was also known as Jennie and she is listed as Gwendoline in some records. Francis was baptised on 9th December 1894 in Christ Church, Heeley, Sheffield, his parents living at 72 Penns Road, and his father’s occupation railway clerk.

 

In 1901 they are living at 76 Burcot Road, Norton, Derbyshire (on the outskirts of Sheffield).  His father is a railway clerk, his mother is listed as Gwendolyn, Francis is 6.

 

The family moved to Hendon, Middlesex by 1907, when his father is found on the electoral roll at 8a Montague Road.  

In 1911 they are at the same address. His father is 44, a railway goods clerk, his mother is 40, Francis is 16, a junior clerk for a rubber agent.

 

Francis was a Boy Scout leader, according to an article in the Hendon and Finchley Times on 28th November 1913:

“A very successful concert was given by the 1st Mill Hill (St. Paul’s) Troop of Scouts on Wednesday at Hartley Hall.  [...]  The first half closed with an entertainment by the Ragtime Swells who were under the direction of Francis H. Poncia A.S.M.” (Assistant Scout Master?)

 

He enlisted in St Albans, Hertfordshire and originally served as 11355, in the Army Cyclist Corps. The amount of the War Gratuity suggests that he served for 28 months, enlisting at the end of 1915. At some point he was posted to the 18th Battalion of The King’s Liverpool Regiment and later to the 19th, serving in ‘B’ Company, 8th Platoon.

 

Francis was declared initially Missing between 23rd-30th March 1918 although his death was presumed for official purposes and his record shows that he was killed in action on the 30^th March 1918 aged 23 during the German Spring Offensive.

As Graham Maddocks points out in his book The Liverpool Pals, the CWGC records 38 men of the 19^th Bn of The King’s Liverpool Regiment as killed in action on 30^th March 1918 when as the Battalion diary below, shown in bold type, records that the men were actually out of the line and safely on the way to St Valery- sur- Somme.

The composite battalion moved off from ROUVREL at 8.30 am at 50 yards interval between companies, arriving at SALEUX at 3.20 pm where they entrained, detraining at ST. VALERY-SUR-SOMME the same night. The night was spent at ST. VALERY-SUR-SOMME.

Apart from those whose bodies were not found and are commemorated on the Pozieres Memorial all but two have burial sites at Savy British Cemetery, which itself is within a couple of miles of Roupy and contains most of the identified men killed on 22^nd March 1918. Therefore, it would appear that the date of death for these men shown as 30^th March 1918 is purely an arbitrary one and that they were in fact killed on 22^nd March.

Francis is commemorated in Savy British Cemetery, where a Special Kipling Memorial reads:

“To the Memory of these 68 British Soldiers who were killed in action in March 1918 and buried at the time in the German Cemetery on the St. Quentin - Roupy Road, whose graves are now lost.”

 The inscription on Francis' headstone reads:

“ONE OF GOD'S BEST. BLESSED ARE THE PURE IN HEART”

Savy was taken by the 32nd Division on the 1st April 1917, after hard fighting, and Savy Wood on the 2nd. On the 21st March 1918 Savy and Roupy were successfully defended by the 30th Division, but the line was withdrawn after nightfall. The village and the wood were retaken on the 17th September 1918 by the 34th French Division, fighting on the right of the British IX Corps.

Savy British Cemetery was made in 1919, and the graves from the battlefields and from the following small cemeteries in the neighbourhood were concentrated into it.

There are now over 850, 1914-18 war casualties commemorated in this site. Of these, more than half are unidentified. Memorials are erected in the cemetery to 68 soldiers (chiefly of the 19th King's Liverpools and the 17th Manchesters), buried by the Germans in their cemetery on the St. Quentin-Roupy road, whose graves were destroyed by shell fire.

The Cemetery covers an area of 2,555 square metres and is enclosed by a low rubble wall.

Francis was reported missing in the Weekly Casualty List on 04th June 1918

- Poncia 58067 Pte F. (Elstree);

His parents made enquiries with the British Red Cross on 2nd August 1918 but there is no record of any response.  A search of International Red Cross record has not found any information on Francis.

 

His Army effects and a War Gratuity of £13 went to his mother Gwendoline [sic].  A pension card has not been found.

 

The 1928 electoral roll finds his parents in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire.  In 1939 his parents are living at 51 Byron Road, Cheltenham.  His father, 73, is a retired railway clerk, his mother is 69. They lived through another World War. His father died in 1950 aged 83, and his mother in 1956, aged 86, still living in Cheltenham. 

 

Francis is commemorated on Borehamwood, Hertfordshire, memorials (6 miles north of Hendon) -

 

Borehamwood Town Memorial

All Saints Church, Borehamwood.