Pte 24962 James Mark Holden

Some mystery surrounds this man’s parentage and birthdate. There is no birth record for a James Mark Holden, but a James M. and Mark Holding appear on censuses.  

 

 

James Mark Holden was born on the 25th September 1884 in Upholland, Lancashire the son of Thomas Holden and his wife Catharine (nee Alker) Holden/Houlding who were married in 1883, registered in Prescot. He was baptised on the 14th February 1886 at St. Thomas the Martyr, Upholland, his parents were listed as Thomas and Catherine Houlding, abode Holland Moor, father’s occupation quarryman. 

 

The whereabouts of Thomas Holden/Houlding are hard to pinpoint but he may have been the married man Thomas Houlding, a 26 year old quarryman on the 1881 census who was living with his wife Alice and two children in Preston.   

 

The only James or Mark Holden/Holding found in 1891 is a Mark Holding, age 7, in the Alker household in Ormskirk Road, Upholland. He is listed as a grandson of Nicholas and Ann Alker, who have two daughters, Ann, 38, and Catherine, 36, and two sons at home. Also living in the household are four other grandsons, including Arthur Alker, 16, and Nicholas Alker, 17, both sons of mother Catherine, from their baptism records. It is not certain, however, that this is James Mark Holden.

 

In 1901 James M. Holding, 16, a coal mine worker (top), is living at 78 Ormskirk Road, Upholland. His mother Catherine, widowed, is 46, and his half sister Louisa 7.

 

1911 finds Mark Holding living with his mother Catherine Williams, 56, at 80 Ormskirk Road, Upholland.  He is 26, a coal miner, below ground.  His half sister Louisa 17, is a domestic servant, living in nearby Shevington.  His mother states that she has had two children, both still living. (This does not fit with the Catherine Alker who had two previous children.) 

 

He married Alice Foster in St. Thomas, Upholland on 26th October 1912  and they went on to have two daughters – Gladys born on 18th February 1913 and Freda Catherine born on Christmas Eve 24th December 1914.

 

Mark was employed in the White Moss Colliery, Skelmersdale, before enlisting.

 

He enlisted in Liverpool on 01st February 1915 joining in the 17th Battalion, The King’s Liverpool Regiment as Private No 24962.

He was billeted at Prescot Watch Factory, he trained there and also at Knowsley Hall. On 30th April 1915 the 17th Battalion alongside the other three Pals battalions left Liverpool via Prescot Station for further training at Belton Park, Grantham. They remained here until September 1915 when they reached Larkhill Camp on Salisbury Plain. 

As their service numbers are adjacent, he apparently enlisted with another Liverpool Pal, Pte. 24961 Richard Johnson, also from Upholland, and who also worked in the White Moss Colliery. 

A former online commemorative site (UphollandWarMemorial.co.uk), states, based on information in the local parish magazine, that the vicar of Upholland journeyed to visit the local lads who had joined the Liverpool Pals whilst they were training at Larkhill Camp on Salisbury Plain, in October before the Pals battalions shipped out to the front in early November.  He was able to see “many of his lads” and his accounts printed in the church magazine “must have been a morale booster for the many families of serving soldiers. The visit culminated in a ‘sing-song’ and after some initial shyness by those present it was noted in the article that Mark Holden had given a song.”

Mark reached France on the 07th November 1915. He was wounded (contusion right leg/foot) on 10th February 1916 and admitted to Field Ambulance, he was subsequently admitted to 21 Casualty Clearing Station on the same day. He was then transferred to 2 Canadian General Hospital Le Treport 13th February 1916. From there he was sent to the Convalescent Depot based at Le Havre on 21st February 1916. Following this he joined 30 Infantry Base Depot from the Convalescent Camp at Rouen on 29th February 1916. He then joined the 2nd Entrenching Battalion on 17th March 1916 and rejoined his battalion the 17th KLR on 29th May 1916.

He was killed in action on the 30th July 1916, aged 31, with A Company at the village of Guillemont, France, during the Somme Offensive.

17th Battalion Diary 30th July 1916

The Battalion was in support to 19 & 20 Battalions K.L.R. 2 Coys. behind 19th & 2 Coys. behind 20th. Very thick mist. The attack was pushed home to the objective in places but in the main was held up by machine gun fire from hidden machine guns.

Fighting continued all day swaying backwards and forwards until by 6pm about 300 yards in depth had been gained & consolidated all along our front.

Casualties in the 17th Battalion were 15 Officers and 281 Other Ranks

Further details are reported in more detailed by Everard Wyrall in his book The History of the King’s Regiment (Liverpool) 1914-1919 Volume II 1916-1917

The 17th King’s had advanced (two companies each behind the 19th and 20th Battalions) in small columns. They too suffered heavily from machine-gun fire and were quickly absorbed into the waves that preceded them. They also shared the gains and losses of that terrible day.

When darkness fell on the battlefield the 30th Division held a line from the railway on the eastern side of Trones Wood , southwards and including Arrow Head Copse, to east of Maltz Horn Farm. On this line the division was relieved by the 55th Division during the early hours of the 31st July. 

The events of 30th July 1916 were regarded at the time as Liverpool’s blackest day. There follows an extract from The History of the 89th Brigade written by Brigadier General Ferdinand Stanley which gives an indication of the events of the day.

Guillemont

Well the hour to advance came, and of all bad luck in the world it was a thick fog; so thick that you couldn’t see more than about ten yards. It was next to impossible to delay the attack – it was much too big an operation- so forward they had to go. It will give some idea when I say that on one flank we had to go 1,750 yards over big rolling country. Everyone knows what it is like to cross enclosed country which you know really well in a fog and how easy it is to lose your way. Therefore, imagine these rolling hills, with no landmarks and absolutely unknown to anyone. Is it surprising that people lost their way and lost touch with those next to them? As a matter of fact, it was wonderful the way in which many men found their way right to the place we wanted to get to. But as a connected attack it was impossible.

The fog was intense it was practically impossible to keep direction and parties got split up. Owing to the heavy shelling all the Bosches had left their main trenches and were lying out in the open with snipers and machine guns in shell holes, so of course our fellows were the most easy prey.

It is so awfully sad now going about and finding so many splendid fellows gone.      

Mark was initially declared Missing; his name appeared in the list of K.L.R. Missing published on 14th September 1916 in the Liverpool Post & Mercury.  His death was later presumed, for official purposes, as having occurred on or since 30th July 1916.

 

He was buried close to where he fell and after the war, when graves were concentrated, his body was exhumed and reinterred in Guillemont Road Cemetery, Somme, where he now rests.

Guillemont was an important point in the German defences at the beginning of the Battle of the Somme in July 1916. It was taken by the 2nd Royal Scots Fusiliers on 30 July but the battalion was obliged to fall back, and it was again entered for a short time by the 55th (West Lancashire) Division on 8 August. On 18 August, the village was reached by the 2nd Division, and on 3 September (in the Battle of Guillemont) it was captured and cleared by the 20th (Light) and part of the 16th (Irish) Divisions. It was lost in March 1918 during the German advance, but retaken on 29 August by the 18th and 38th (Welsh) Divisions.

The cemetery was begun by fighting units (mainly of the Guards Division) and field ambulances after the Battle of Guillemont, and was closed in March 1917, when it contained 121 burials. It was greatly increased after the Armistice when graves (almost all of July-September 1916) were brought in from the battlefields immediately surrounding the village.

Guillemont Road Cemetery now contains 2,263 Commonwealth burials and commemorations of the First World War. 1,523 of the burials are unidentified but there are special memorials to eight casualties known or believed to be buried among them.

The cemetery was designed by Sir Herbert Baker. 

Mark earned his three medals.

 

Alice was living at 80 0rmskirk Road, Upholland at the time of James' death. His daughters were three years and eighteen months old when he was killed.

 

His widow Alice received his Army effects, including a War Gratuity of £6. A war pension was awarded to his wife Alice and their two children. 

 

Alice had another daughter, Edna Holden, born on 26th December 1918.

She went on to remarry to James Johnson in June 1919, a daughter May Johnson was born in 1920. .

 

Alice suffered a loss just days before Mark was killed, when her brother Thomas Foster, 95th Machine Gun Corps, died of wounds on 25th July 1916, aged 22. He now rests at Boulogne Eastern Cemetery.

 

His friend Richard Johnson was mortally wounded in the same action at Guillemont and died of his wounds the day after Mark and now rests in Carnoy Military Cemetery. He left a widow and four children.

 

In 1939 Alice, 54, with husband James Johnson and daughter Edna Holden, 21, is living at 188 Ormskirk Road, Upholland, down the road from married daughter Freda. His daughters both married.  

 

Alice appears to have died in 1965, aged 79.  Freda died in 1971, aged 56 and Gladys in 1998, aged 85.

 

Mark is commemorated on the following memorials 

(also brother-in-law Thomas Foster and Pal Richard Johnson) -