We continue our tribute to the eight players with Bristol Rovers connections who were killed in the First World War.
EDWARD MURPHY
b April 1881 Tunstall, Staffordshire
25.5.1916 London
Début: 5.10.07 v Watford
Career: Tunstall Crosswell’s; 29.10.02 Glossop [86,18]; 27.7.05 Bury [27,1]; May 1906 Gainsborough Trinity (trial); 28.6.06 Swindon Town; 19.8.07 Bristol Rovers; 16.7.08 Denaby United; 26.11.08 Biddulph Mission; December 1909 St George’s Victoria; October 1910 Silverwood Colliery; April 1911 South Kirkby Colliery.
Following a successful Football League career, in which he scored for Bury in a 3-2 victory over Everton on Boxing Day 1905, 36 games for Swindon Town alongside Billy Tout in the Southern League had brought Eddie Murphy six goals. He had played in both fixtures in 1906/07 against Rovers and scored twice each in the home victories over New Brompton and Northampton Town. Five feet eight and a half inches tall and weighing 11 stone seven pounds, he made his Rovers début in a 2-1 win at Watford and scored the opening goal in a 2-2 draw at home to Norwich City seven days later; he never played for the club again.
The fifth of eight children to James Murphy and Elizabeth Byrne, who had both moved from County Carlow in search of work in the ironstone industry, Eddie Murphy was brought up at 8 Chapel Street, Tunstall and later around the corner at 23 Booth Street, and was working as a coal miner in 1901.
Unmarried, he served in France and Flanders as a Private with the 1st Staffordshire Regiment, number 7599 and, gassed at Wulverghem, died of his wounds at King George V Military Hospital in Stamford Street.
The next of kin named was his eldest sibling, Margaret (1875-1953), who married in 1893 George Hall Billings (1876-1962). Eddie Murphy is buried in grave FA.N.C.7 at Tunstall Cemetery. Died of wounds at King George V Military Hospital, Stamford Street, London.
HENRY PHILLIPS
b 1887 Bristol
d 2.10.1917 Belgium
Début: 3.9.10 v Norwich City Career: Greenbank; 5.9.08 Bristol Rovers; 1913 Troedyrhiw Stars; 5.6.14 Bargoed Town.
Harry Phillips made his début for Rovers reserves in September 1908 and went on to play for the club in 63 Southern League games, scoring twice.
A left half, he scored a consolation goal in a defeat at Northampton in December 1910 and the final goal as QPR were defeated comfortably 3-0 at Eastville in October 1912. In addition, he was in the Rovers side which defeated First Division Notts County in an emotional FA Cup tie at Eastville in January 1913.
One of four children to Edward Colston Phillips and his wife Clara of 40 Freeland Buildings, Eastville, Harry married in 1912 Blanch Edith Parslow (who re married to John Truscott in 1918) and they were living at 24 Herbert Street, Eastville at the time of his death.
By 1917 his father, who was baptised in Bristol on 16th May 1847, the son of Edward Phillips and Priscilla Barratt, had passed away. Harry Phillips died during hostilities in the First World War, whilst serving in the 12th Battalion of the Gloucestershire Regiment and is commemorated on the Memorial to the Missing at Tyne Cot, Panel 72-75.