Cecil Mark Martin’s father Mark Le Grys Martin (b.1862 in Lambeth), was the son of Mark Craig Martin (a Thames Waterman) and Ellen Rhoda Le Grys, having five sisters and three brothers living at 9 Princes Road, Bermondsey in 1881.
He married Mary Hannah Adham, known as Polly (b.1862 in Louth, Lincolnshire), in the summer of 1893 at St Katharine’s Church, Rotherhithe. His home address at the time given as 40 Rectory Road, Rotherhithe.
Eight years later in 1901, Mark Le Grys Martin was working as a Commercial Clerk for a Wholesale and Export Company. He and Mary were living in Peckham with their four children, Doris (b.1895), Cecil Mark (b.1 September 1896), Leslie (b.1899) and Percy (b.1901). Another son, Alan was born in 1903. They shared a house at 4 York Terrace, Astbury Road, just off Queen’s Road, Peckham, with another family, Percy & Lillian Luff and their two children.
Cecil’s family moved to Welling sometime between 1903 and 1907, when he was in his early teens. His youngest brother, Stanley was born in Welling in 1907. Their home was at 11 Gipsy Road, a terraced house that at the time would have had two rooms downstairs and two up, with an outside toilet, not that large for a family of eight.
In 1911, his sister Doris now aged 16, is listed as a Draper’s Clerk, whilst Cecil aged 14 was already working as a Company Clerk / Company Promoter, whilst his younger brothers were all still at school.
Leslie was possibly one of the first Boy Scouts of the 9th North West Kent Scout Group, formed in March 1911, and renamed in early 1912 as the 1st East Wickham Scout Troop. They met in the Old Foster’s School rooms on the corner of Upper Wickham Lane and Berwick Road (where the ATC Hall now stands), therefore just across the road from his home.
The outbreak of the First World War interrupted the Troop Summer Camp at Seasalter, and the Troop, possibly including Cecil, his brother Leslie Martin and Herbert Henry Huggett, helped catch a German spy on the Kent coast before returning to Welling to take up guard over a local railway bridge until the Army could be mobilised some three weeks later. It was recorded that the Troop formed a camp in an orchard close to the railway bridge and duties were cheerfully performed. During the First World War local Scouts, as elsewhere, were involved in various forms of service, giving bugle ‘alarms’ of air raids and the ‘all clear’, guarding main roads, railway bridges, telephone and telegraph lines, acting as hospital orderlies, patients for Red Cross trainees, distributing handbills in connection with appeals for National Relief Funds and National Savings.
Leslie was a number of Boy Scouts who answered the call to arms along with Scoutmaster William Wrighton, Honorary Scoutmaster W. Collier (from Huddersfield, stationed in Danson Park), Hawden, Huggett, Worsley, Butterfield, Holmes, Davis, Evans, Charman, Shelley and Harris.
His father Mark died aged 52 in June 1913.
Cecil Mark Martin joined up as a Private with the 1st/5th Battalion, Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders (service number 201341, may also have been 3343).
1/5th (Renfrewshire) Battalion Territorial Force’s record for World War One is as follows:
4 August 1914 – Stationed at Greenock as part of the Black Watch Brigade on the Scottish Coast Defences.
24 March 1915 – The Batallion moved to Dunfermline and transferred to the Highland Light Infantry Brigade of the Lowland Division. 11 May 1915 – The formation became the 157th Brigade of the 52nd Division. 1 June 1915 – Embarked for Gallipoli from Devonport, Plymouth via Alexandria and Mudros. On 7 July – landed at Cape Helles and engaged in various actions against the Turkish Army including attacks at Gully Ravine, Achi Baba Nullah, Krithia Nullahs and the evacuation of Helles.
8 January 1916 – Evacuated from Gallipoli to Mudros due to severe casualties from combat, disease and harsh weather. February 1916 – Deployed to Egypt took over Suez Canal defences.
As Cecil made his Will, leaving all his possessions to his Mother, on 14 February 1916, that could have been when he left England, meaning he may have been posted direct to the Suez Canal that month.
Cecil was killed in Action in Egypt on 10 November 1917. He is buried at the Gaza War Cemetery in Israel (10/11/17 X A 10).
Unfortunately back at home his younger brother Leslie Martin was dying of Tuberculosis, having been discharged from the Army having not even left England’s shores, so by Christmas 1917 his Mother was mourning the lost of two sons.
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This story has been researched by volunteers. We have taken every effort to ensure its accuracy. If you are related to Cecil Mark Martin, or if you have any further information, please do get in touch.