William & Richard Tasker

 William Biddulph Greaves Tasker

& Richard Greaves Tasker

William Biddulph Greaves Tasker was born in 1859, the son of Richard Thomas Tasker, doctor, and Louisa Susanna Tasker, at The Grange, Chapel Street, Melbourne. Dr Tasker was well known in the district and medical advisor to, among others, Earl Ferrers at Staunton Harold. 

William became a Justice of the Peace in Melbourne before moving to Stow on the Wold where he married Julia Helen Belcher of Swindon Hall near Cheltenham. They then moved to Bromsgrove where he was a churchwarden and chairman of the committee of the Stoke Farm Boys Reformatory. 

He retired to Worcester where he was Treasurer of the Church Education Society, and a member of the committee of the C of E Men's Society and the Royal Albert Orphan Society. His son Richard visited him on leave in 1916 and he died the day after Richard had to return to the front. He was buried at Worcester.

Richard Greaves Tasker

Richard Greaves Tasker, the only son of William and Louisa was born in Stow on the Wold. He attended Worcester College and achieved an Honours degree in Jurisprudence (Law). He was at Inner Temple and about to be called to the Bar in 1914 when war broke out and he joined the 10th Worcester Regiment as a Lieutenant.

He married Vera Frances Everett in January 1915 and went to the Front in July. He was promoted to Captain in September 1915 and was killed in action at La Boisselle* on 3 July 1916 during the Battle of the Somme, when he was 27.

(The battle of La Boisselle was very fierce with bomb and bayonet fights over lines of trenches and then continuing through the ruins of the village. The battalion lost a third of its men including 9 officers, one of whom was Captain Tasker.)