b. 4th Quarter 1881 Burton on Trent, Staffordshire. d. 1961 Rowley Regis, Staffordshire.
DATE OF EM ACTION: 08/02/1912 Burton on Trent, Staffordshire.
Richard Staley Brookes was born in the winter of 1881 in Burton on Trent, Staffordshire, to John Staley and Emma Brookes. He was their fifth of six sons, with his siblings named Arthur, Alfred, Samuel, John and Basil. His father was a grocer and baker, and was ten years younger than his wife. By 1901, Richard’s father had died, and his mother had taken over the grocery business, and Richard was working as an engine fitter’s apprentice at Messrs Charrington and Co, in Burton on Trent. On 28th August 1909 at Holy Trinity, Burton, Richard married Clara Appleby. They lived at 327 Uxbridge Street in Burton at the beginning of their marriage. They had a son Leonard, born in 1914. Little else is known about Richard after this time, and it is believed he died in Rowley Regis in 1961, aged 79.
EM CITATION:
On the 8th of February, 1912, a workman named Thomas Rogers was repairing the spouting of a building at a height of 40 feet from the ground at the brewery of Messrs. Charrington and Co., Burton-on-Trent, when without warning the ladder on which he was standing broke, and he fell headforemost. Brookes, a fitter in the employment of Messrs. Charrington, rushed forward with outstretched arms and caught him as he fell, thereby saving Rogers’ life at considerable risk to his own. His action was rendered more difficult and dangerous by his having to evade the portion of the ladder to which Rogers continued to cling as he fell.
BURIAL LOCATION: UNKNOWN.
LOCATION OF MEDAL: PRIVATELY HELD. SOLD AT DNW FOR £1,700 IN MAY 2011.
