Peterborough & The Great War

Biography

Private R Rayment was serving with the Royal Army Medical Corps Territorials attached to No 2 Hospital Ship when he passed through Peterborough East Station at 14 October 1916.

Private Rayment’s service record has not been located but it is thought that he was Rodney J Rayment who was born on 22 August 1897 in Cambridge.  Rodney’s father, Josiah was a police constable and his mother Emma (Chilcott) died in 1901 when he was three years old.  This was Josiah’s second wife, having previously been married to Margaret Harriett Harvey, who died in 1883.  Rodney had six half-siblings from the first marriage, Henry J (1870), Harriett Charlotte (1872), Martha Kate (1874), George Harvey (1876), Alice M (1880) and Emily (1883) and two siblings from the second marriage, William (1889) and Eva (1892).  Rodney was the youngest.  His father died in 1913, when Rodney was 16 years old.

In 1901, Rodney (3) was living at 2 Mill Street, Cambridge with his father, Josiah (53), now widowed and a retired police constable, his two sisters Kate (27) and Emily (18) were doing domestic work at home and William (12) and Eva (9) were both at school.  In 1911 Rodney, a schoolboy of 13, was living with his father and sister Kate at Broad Lane, Cottenham.

Rodney gave his regimental number as 10376, but the records we have found gives the number 10379. His medal records show that he most likely enlisted in late 1914, when he would have been 17 years old, as he was serving in France in January 1915.  At some point during his service he is promoted to Acting Sergeant.  He was awarded the 15 Star, British War and Allied Victory Medals.

Rodney married Alice Barbara Lowman in Aldershot in 1936.  No children have been traced.  In 1939, Rodney and Alice are living at Wood Cottage, Tweseldown Road, Fleet, Hampshire.  Rodney was a first aid attendant and medical clerk.  They were living with Alice’s parents, Harry and Edith.

Rodney died in Aldershot in 1967, aged 70 years.

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