Pte 15741 Joseph McKenzie Stephens

• Age: 23
• From: Rock Ferry, Cheshire
• Regiment: The King's (Liverpool Regiment) 17th Btn
• K.I.A Monday 10th July 1916
• Commemorated at: Thiepval Memorial
  Panel Ref: P&F1D8B &8 C.

Joseph McKenzie Stephens was born in Rock Ferry, Cheshire in the March quarter of 1893, the fourth of five children born to Joseph Stephens a postman, and his wife Angelina, known as Eliza, (nee Ellis). He was baptised at St Paul's Church, Tranmere on 02nd March 1893. His parents were married in Birkenhead in 1881.

Joseph's mother Angelina died in the June quarter of 1907, aged 40. 

His father, Joseph remarried in 1908 to Margaret Jane Coathup.

In 1911 the family was living at 73 Greenway Road, Birkenhead, his father Joseph is aged 51 and is a postman,  hisstepmother Mary Jane is aged 43, she was born in Toxteth. They have two children in the household; Charles 22 Clerk of Works with a printing company, and Joseph McKenzie 17 is working as a fishmonger for a game and poultry dealer.

Joseph enlisted in Liverpool, joining the 17th Battalion of The King's Liverpool Regiment as Private 15741. 

He was billeted at Prescot Watch Factory from 14^th September 1914, 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.  

There is no service record available for Joseph but the Medal Rolls show that he went to France with his Battalion on 07^th November 1915 and earned the 1915 Star, Victory and British War Medals.

He was killed in action at Trones Wood on 10^th July 1916 aged 23.

The murderous fighting that went on inside Trones Wood rendered it impossible to put specific dates on some of the casualties which is why many of the 17^th Battalion losses have been bracketed as killed in action between 10^th – 12th July 1916.The conditions are best described in the following passage from Everard Wyrall’s book The History of The King’s Regiment (Liverpool) Volume II; 

The remembrance of Trones Wood in July 1916 to those who passed through it is of a noisome, horrible place, of a tangled mass of trees and undergrowth which had been tossed and flung about in frightful confusion by the shells of both sides. Of the ghastly dead which lay about in all directions, and of DEATH, lurking in every hole and corner with greedy hands ready to snatch the lives of the unwary. The place was Death trap, and although the attacks were made with great determination,  the presence of snipers who could not be detected and often fired into the backs of our men made the clearing of the wood impossible.

He was declared missing in the Chester Chronicle on 09th September 1916:

- Stephens, 15741, J.Mc. (Birkenhead), also Pals Caldicott 15962 and Freestone 15164

His body was not recovered from the battlefield or was subsequently lost as he is commemorated on the Thiepval Memorial.

The Thiepval Memorial, the Memorial to the Missing of the Somme, bears the names of more than 72,000 officers and men of the United Kingdom and South African forces who died in the Somme sector before 20 March 1918 and have no known grave. Over 90% of those commemorated died between July and November 1916.

On 01st August 1932 the Prince of Wales and the President of France inaugurated the Thiepval Memorial in Picardy. The inscription reads: “Here are recorded the names of officers and men of the British Armies who fell on the Somme battlefields between July 1915 and March 1918 but to whom the fortune of war denied the known and honoured burial given to their comrades in death.”