LIONEL FLAXMAN HOTSON
Private Service No. 307710
Royal Warwickshire Regiment 1st 8th Territorial Battalion
(Enlisted at Huntingdon in 1675 Hunts. Cyclist Battn.)

Died 27 August 1916 age about 18.
Commemorated Thiepval Memorial, Somme, France and on his parents grave in Old Reading Cemetery.

Lionel was the son of William Flaxman Hotson and Caroline Elizabeth Hotson. He had a younger brother Cyril Augustus and younger sisters Grace Kathleen and Marie Christine. The family is recorded as living Blackwater Stores, West Mersea in 1911 but have not been found in Mersea records after this date, or before 1909, so it is possible that they were only in Mersea for a few years, and by the outbreak of WW1 had moved to Reading. Lionel's details with Commonwealth War Graves Commission give his parents as living in Reading.

W.F. Hotson's shop in Mill Road was a branch of Blackwater Stores in Church Road

The details of Lionel's death are not known. His battalion suffered very high casualties on the first day of the Somme as they fought along the line of the Serre road, just north of Hawthorn Ridge. The battalion casualties numbered 588 names. The 1st/8th had been attached to the 4th Division on the 1st July, their own Division the 46th fared little better being used in the diversionary attack at Gommecourt.

On the 2nd July the 46th Division returned to normal trench warfare. The war of attrition of the Somme battles with attack and counterattack, continued throughout the summer until mid November.

Sources
Reading War Graves - cemeteryjunctionwargraves.org.uk
Commonwealth War Graves Commission