Pte 30956 Joseph Lloyd

• Age: 20
• From: Liverpool
• Regiment: The King's (Liverpool Regiment) 17th Btn
• K.I.A Monday 9th April 1917
• Commemorated at: Henin Crucifix Cem
  Panel Ref: A.37

Joseph Lloyd was born in 1897 in Liverpool and resided in Altcar, Formby and was baptised 14th February 1897 in Altcar. He was the son of Richard Lloyd and his wife Martha Ellen (nee Threlfall) who had been married in 1896 at St. Michaels, Altcar. Altcar was a predominately farming community and both Richard and Martha were from family labourer backgrounds.

At the time of the 1901 census Richard was a farm labourer, he was 28 and his wife was 24. They had three sons – Joseph aged 4, James aged 2 and John aged 1. The family lived at Mercers Cottages in Altcar.

The 1911 census records the family at the same address, Father Richard is aged 38 a farm labourer b.Freshfield, mother Martha Ellen is 33 (married 14 years with 3 children), Joseph now aged 14 is working as a farm labourer. His two brothers James 12 and John 11 are still at school.

Joseph enlisted in Liverpool and was serving in the 17th Battalion, The King’s Liverpool Regiment as Private No 30956 when he was killed in action on the 9th April 1917, aged 20, during the Battle of Arras.

Everard Wyrall records the events of the 9th April 1917 for the 17th, 19th and 20th Battalions in Volume 2 of his History of the King's Regiment (Liverpool).

The 89th Brigade formed up for the attack with the 19th King's on the right and the 20th King’s on the left. The 17th King’s supplied the “mopping up" parties and he 2nd Bedfords were in close support.

It was just after 3pm when the advance began “According to scheduled time the waves advanced in good style and with determination; everyone was cheerful and in the best of spirits”

That advance is described by others as magnificent. From the OP’s the observing officers saw a wonderful sight – long lines of men advancing steadily up a long and gradual slope towards the enemy’ front line. Then suddenly they disappeared. The observers quite pardonably, imagined that the German front line had fallen into the hands of the assaulting troops and that the latter were on the way to the enemy’s support line. Alas something very different had happened. When the advancing troops had reached the summit of the long slope up which they advanced the ground suddenly dipped before the German front line , and when the observing officers thought they were already in the Bosche lines they had not, as a matter of fact, even reached the wire. What the observers took to be the front line was really the support line; the front line could not be seen - it lay just behind the crest of that slight rise in the ground.

The attacking waves of the 19th King’s got within 100 yards of the German wire but were then held up. They were faced by three belts of entanglements, practically untouched by our artillery, and nothing could be done but to dig in or else take shelter in the many shell- shell-with which “No Man’s Land" was pitted. By this time the battalion’s losses were very heavy, and when darkness fell “A" and “B" Companies (about 140 in all) lay in shell-holes, two or three hundred yards north east of St. Martin, but just south of the Cojeul River, and “C" and “D" Companies (140 all ranks) were along the river bank, but on the northern side about 150 yards north east of St. Martin.

The first waves of the 20th King’ advanced at 3.7pm. At 4pm Lieut Beaumont, commanding “A" Company, reported that he had had some forty casualties in passing

through the enemy’s barrage. The next message, timed 4.40pm, stated that the position of the battalion at that period was on a crest in front of the enemy’s wire and about 100 yards from it. On the right the 21st Division was observed to have penetrated the enemy’s front line, but in the left the right Battalion of the 21st Brigade (the Wilts) was on the St. Martin- Neuville Vitasse road; the left flank of the 20th King's was, therefore, “ in the air”.

Urgent messages were sent up from Battalion Headquarters to “push on, keeping in touch with right” But little else could be accomplished until those formidable belts of wire had been cut sufficiently to allow the rapid passage of the attacking troops, headed by their bombers.

At 9:30 that night 89th Brigade Headquarters ordered both the 19th and 20th Battalions to withdraw, the former to the two sunken roads running south east from St. Martin, the latter to north west of St. Martin; the guns had been ordered to cut the enemy’s wire during the night in preparation for another attack during the 10th April.

Of the 17th King’s - the “moppers up" – there is little to relate. There was nothing to “mop up" so that they did not function. Yet they had shared all the perils of the advance, and when after they had fallen back and at midnight held the following positions, “B", “C", and “D" Companies in and around the sunken road north of Boiry-Becquerelle and “A" Company in trenches west of Henin, they lost 2 officers and 16 other ranks killed, and 3 officers and 48 other ranks wounded.

Joseph now rests at Henin Crucifix Cemetery, France. The inscription on his headstone reads:

“THY WILL BE DONE”

Henin-sur-Cojeul was captured on 02nd April 1917, lost in March 1918 after an obstinate resistance by the 40th Division, and retaken on 24 August 1918 by the 52nd (Lowland) Division.

Henin Crucifix Cemetery is named from a calvary standing on the opposite side of the road. It was made by units of the 30th Division after the capture of the village in 1917.

Henin Crucifix Cemetery contains 61 burials and commemorations of the First World War. Two of the burials are unidentified and eight graves, destroyed in later fighting, are now represented by special memorials.

The cemetery was designed by G H Goldsmith.

His death was reported in the local press:

"Joseph Lloyd a Private in the K.L.R. lost his life in the fighting on Easter Monday. He went out with his regiment that day and was not afterwards seen alive, and there is no doubt he was killed. He was a son of Mr and Mrs Richard Lloyd of Mercer's Cottage, Altcar and was 21 years of age". 

He is also commemorated on the War Memorial at St Peters Church, Formby.

The loss of Joseph was followed just over a year later by the death of his brother James who died on the 31st August 1918 at the age of 19. He was serving in "D" Coy, 13th Battalion, Kings Liverpool Regiment as Private number 381126. He now rests in H.A.C. Cemetery Ecoust-St.Mein. His headstone reads exactly the same as his brother.

“THY WILL BE DONE” 

Soldiers effects to his father Richard and pension to Martha Ellen. 

The mother died on the 26th Jan 1944 aged 67 (family tree)

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