Pte 50609 Benjamin Thomas Larner

• Age: 19
• From: Northleach, Gloucestershire
• Regiment: The King's (Liverpool Regiment) 19th Btn
• K.I.A Saturday 30th March 1918
• Commemorated at: Pozieres Memorial
  Panel Ref: P21-23

Benjamin Thomas Larner was born 1896 in Northleach, Gloucestershire and was the son of Charles Larner and his wife Jane (nee Hall). He was baptised on 08th June 1896 according to a family tree. His parents married on 10th November 1883 in Northleach.

On the 1901 Census the family are living in Coates Village, Near Cirencester, Gloucestershire. His father Charles is a 50 year old farm labourer, his mother Jane is aged 43. Thye have four children in the household, all born in Northleach:  Maud 17, Stephen 14 farm labourer, Joseph 8 and Benji 4.

He enlisted in Cirencester, Gloucestershire and serving in the 19^th Battalion, The King’s Liverpool Regiment as Private No 50609 when he was killed in action on the 30^th March 1918 aged 19 during the German Spring Offensive. 

As Graham Maddocks points out in his book The Liverpool Pals, the CWGC records 38 men of the 19^th Bn of The King’s Liverpool Regiment as killed in action on 30^th March 1918 when as the Battalion diary below, shown in bold type, records that the men were actually out of the line and safely on the way to St Valery- sur- Somme.

The composite battalion moved off from ROUVREL at 8.30 am at 50 yards interval between companies, arriving at SALEUX at 3.20 pm where they entrained, detraining at ST. VALERY-SUR-SOMME the same night. The night was spent at ST. VALERY-SUR-SOMME.

Apart from those whose bodies were not found and are commemorated on the Pozieres Memorial all but two have burial sites at Savy British Cemetery, which itself is within a couple of miles of Roupy and contains most of the identified men killed on 22^nd March 1918. Therefore, it would appear that the date of death for these men shown as 30^th March 1918 is purely an arbitrary one and that they were in fact killed on 22^nd March.

Benjamin Thomas has no known grave and is commemorated on the Pozieres Memorial.

The POZIERES MEMORIAL relates to the period of crisis in March and April 1918 when the Allied Fifth Army was driven back by overwhelming numbers across the former Somme battlefields, and the months that followed before the Advance to Victory, which began on 8 August 1918. The Memorial commemorates over 14,000 casualties of the United Kingdom and 300 of the South African Forces who have no known grave and who died on the Somme from 21 March to 7 August 1918.

The cemetery and memorial were designed by W.H. Cowlishaw, with sculpture by Laurence A. Turner. The memorial was unveiled by Sir Horace Smith-Dorrien on 4 August 1930.

We currently have no further information on Benjamin Thomas Larner, If you have or know someone who may be able to add to the history of this soldier, please contact us.