EDDY HOOKWAY
1899 - 4th August 1917
Edward Charles Hookway (Eddy) was born in Cardiff in 1899. In the 1901 census we see that Mary
Grace Essery married James Hookway in Cardiff in 1898, and then Mary Grace and James and their
sons, Edward Charles, age 2 and James Alfred, 3 months, are living in Lavernock, Penarth. James
Hookway is with the Royal Engineers.
By the 1911 census Mary Grace and James are living at 25 Lavernock Road, Penarth, with their
children: Edward Charles, James Alfred, Irene who is 6, and Leah Grace who is 4, and their
stepson, Harry Essery, who is 15 and a farm labourer. James is an engine driver with the local
cement works. The traffic used to be stopped several times a day while the train went across
Lavernock Road to deposit waste in the old Quarry tip, which is now Cosmeston Country Park.
(Train crossing Lavernock Road)
Prior to the war Eddy had been a groundsman at Glamorganshire Golf Club and is remembered on
the memorial in the Club. Eddy Hookway signed up at the outbreak of war. He was only 15 when
he signed up and lied about his age at the Recruiting Office. He joined the Royal Welsh Fusiliers
15th Battalion. He served at the Dardanelles and took part in two fierce battles in Gallipoli before
he was 17, during which time two of his comrades were shot down on either side of him. Eddy was
a Private and his service number was 12498.
The Dardanelles, a narrow 60-mile-long strip of water that divides Europe from Asia, has been of
great strategic significance for centuries. Carefully secured by international treaty, it was the closing
of the Dardanelles that eventually brought the Ottoman Empire into the war as a German ally, at the
end of October 1914. By late 1914, movement on the Western Front had ground to a halt. Some
Allied leaders suggested opening new fronts to break the dead-lock, shorten the war and avoid
heavier loss of life.