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Trading Stories, Working Lives

Trading Stories, Working Lives: the Barker brothers in WWI

With the centenary of the end of World War I on the horizon, Graham Barker reflects upon the war-time service of five Barker brothers and in-laws.

Drawing upon military records, family papers and published regimental accounts, he pieces together a picture of how the five men served – variously in the Leicestershire Regiment, Army Service Corps, Australian Light Horse, and the Cambridge’s Own (Middlesex) Regiment, in France, East Africa and the Middle East.

As he explains, “Our family is not especially remarkable but – like many other family historians as we approach the centenary commemorations – I feel a flush of pride at realising quite how brave and honourable they were. Ted Barker, Arthur Billson, Roland Barker, Sid Barker and Walter Shimeld, I salute you.”

Download the full story here: the Barker brothers in WWI

You might also like to take a look at the other articles in our Trading Stories, Working Lives series:

The Caves of Leicester – Tories or Whigs?

William and Samuel Whittle, yeoman farmers and rabbit warreners of Charnwood

Nathaniel Orringe, miller and baker of Shepshed

Tom Crew, football referee and broadcaster

Samuel Taylor, beadle of Loughborough

Thomas Norman, elastic web weaver

John W Barker & Son, painters and decorators

Mary Ann Norman, Victorian laundress of Paradise Place

John Collins, Victorian fishmonger and game dealer

John and George Firn, monumental masons

Polkey boatmen of Loughborough

The Harrisons: gardeners, nurserymen and seeds merchants

George Robinson, Victorian letter carrier