Can you help solve the mystery of the fate of these six brothers serving their king and country?

“WHAT an example for the laggards,” exclaimed the pages of the Southampton Pictorial, published by the Daily Echo, 100 years ago as it celebrated another fine example of bravery from one Hampshire family.

The faces of the ‘Six Brothers Serving the King’ belonged to the young Payne brothers, of Romsey, whose portraits were published this week back in November 1914 to acknowledge their gallantry.

The brothers were Private G Payne; R W Payne, a leading stoker in the Royal Navy; Reginald Edward Payne, a member of the 57th Company Royal Engineers, at the front; Percy Payne, of the Royal Marines Light Infantry; Frederick Payne, of the 7th Battalion South Wales Borders; and Lance Corporal S Payne, of the 5th Hampshire Territorial Regiment.

The latest clutch of siblings to be cast into the local limelight after answering Kitchener’s call to arms were the sons of ex-Sergeant G Payne, of Romsey – himself an old volunteer.

Remarkably, the Payne brothers were the second batch of six brothers from one family to all join the colours and fight for king and country.

Just months earlier, back in September 1914, the Harding family, also of Romsey, created something of a precedent when six brothers from the town waved goodbye to their family home in Station Road to take up positions on the front line.

Tragically, by the time this Southampton Pictorial photographic feature had gone to print, Private G Payne, the young man at the top left-hand corner of the collage, had been killed in action.

But what happened to them ?

Daily Echo:

SADLY the Daily Echo archives do not relate whether or not the five brothers alive at the time of the report survived the war. Do you know what happened to them?

Write to: Heritage, Daily Echo, Newspaper House, Test Lane, Redbridge, Southampton SO16 9JX.

Or email, newsdesk@dailyecho.co.uk or telephone Jez Gale on 023 8042 4492.