The 1901 census finds the family at 4 Homer Street, Chorlton, South Manchester, with three children. His father James is a 30 year old warehouse clerk, whilst his mother  Annie is 28.Harry is shown as aged 2 and his sister Annie 5, Edith 3. (the children’s ages are inconsistent).

 

By 1911 they have moved to 48 Yew Tree Road, Withington, South Manchester. His father, 41, is a commercial clerk (home trade), his mother is 39, Annie, 17, is a draper’s assistant, Edith, 16, Harry, 14, and Ethel, 7, are at school, Arthur is 4.

 

Harry enlisted in Manchester on 04th September 1914 joining the King's Own Royal Lancaster Regiment as Private 14249. His address was 9 Shelford Road, Hulme. He was discharged "having made a misstatement as to age on enlistment". He was just 17 at the time and had probably lied about his age in order to join up with the chance to serve overseas. He is described as being 5’ 4 and a half inches tall, weighing 122 lbs, with scars on his left shin and chest, a fresh complexion, grey-blue eyes, and brown hair.

 

 

Not to be deterred Harry enlisted again and joined the 17th Battalion of The King's Liverpool Regiment as Private 52009. SDGW shows that he enlisted in Manchester and gave his residence as Stockport. The amount of the War Gratuity suggests that he enlisted in about June or July 1915 (he turned 18 on July 1st), and again lying about his age in order to serve overseas.

He shipped to France in 1916 and would have marked his 19th birthday going over the top on the first day of the Battle of the Somme at Montauban, when the 17th Bn takes its objectives. The battalion sees further fighting at Trônes Wood, and at the end of the month at Guillemont, the blackest day of the war for the city of Liverpool. Harry survived the Somme, including fighting at the Transloy Ridges in October, and moved with the battalion to Arras in early 1917. The fighting around Arras ground to a halt in mid-May, after which the Pals entrained for the Ypres Salient.  The Third Battle of Ypres (also known as Passchendaele) began on 31st July and continued until November.

By December 1917 the battalion is in the Polderhoek sector of the Salient. The Battalion War Diary records:  

19/12/1917 – Battalion holding front line. Heavy gas shell bombardment of the whole sector between 8 p.m. and 10 p.m. and intermittently during the night necessitating the use of respirators.

20/12/1917 – Battalion holding front line. 2nd Lieut. R. Gill, M.C., M.M., reported enemy in large numbers creeping towards our line about 11:45 a.m.  Rifle and Lewis gun fire failed to disperse them and in reply to our S.O.S. call an artillery barrage was put down. The enemy scattered and at 12.20 p.m. all was quiet.  Casualties: 2 OR killed.

The two Other Ranks killed were Private 52009 James Leach, 19, and Private 35103 James Ellison [Ellinson], aged 25.  

Harry was 20 years of age and was buried in Tower Hamlets Cemetery, his grave marked with a cross.  This small cemetery, between Gheluvelt and Bass Wood, on the west side of a row of pillboxes called Tower Hamlets, contained the graves of 36 soldiers from the United Kingdom who fell in the winter of 1917-1918.

 

After the war, when graves were concentrated, the bodies were removed and reinterred in Hooge Crater Cemetery where he now rests.  

Hooge Chateau and its stables were the scene of very fierce fighting throughout the First World War. On 31 October 1914, the staff of the 1st and 2nd Divisions were wiped out when the chateau was shelled; from 24 May to 3 June 1915, the chateau was defended against German attacks and in July 1915, the crater was made by a mine sprung by the 3rd Division. On 30 July, the Germans took the chateau, and on 9 August, it and the crater were regained by the 6th Division. The Germans retook Hooge on 6 June 1916 and on 31 July 1917, the 8th Division advanced 1.6 Kms beyond it. It was lost for the last time in April 1918, but regained by the 9th (Scottish) and 29th Divisions on 28 September.

Hooge Crater Cemetery was begun by the 7th Division Burial Officer early in October 1917. It contained originally 76 graves, in Rows A to D of Plot I, but was greatly increased after the Armistice when graves were brought in from the battlefields of Zillebeke, Zantvoorde and Gheluvelt and other smaller cemeteries.

There are now 5,916 Commonwealth servicemen of the First World War buried or commemorated in this cemetery. 3,570 of the burials are unidentified, but special memorials record the names of a number of casualties either known or believed to be buried among them, or whose graves in other cemeteries were destroyed by shell fire.

The cemetery was designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens.  

His Army effects and a War Gratuity of £12 went to his mother Annie. The pension card showing his mother at 586 Gorton Road, Reddish, does not indicate the amount of pension awarded. 

 

On the first anniversary of his death his family placed an In Memoriam notice in the  Manchester Evening News:

 

His father died in 1935, aged 65.  In 1939 his mother was living at 1 Wellington Road, Fallowfield.  She died in 1946 in her 74th year.

 

Harry is commemorated on the Co-operative Wholesale Society Limited in Manchester, and also on the family headstone in Southern Cemetery, Manchester -