By 1911 they have moved to 7 Leycester Street, with all ten children at home. His father, James Henry is aged  50 and is a porter in a drapery establishment, his mother is 48.  Annie, 22, is a restaurant cook, Emma, 20, is a restaurant waitress, Margaret is 18, a clothing machinist, and Ellen, 16, helps at home.  John aged 14 is a scholar, Thomas 9, Katie 6, and James, 5, are at school.  Nora is 3, and Albert six months.  They have a boarder, Henry Kerr, 58, from Glasgow. 

 

Another brother Leslie was born in 1914 (revealed on the 1921 census), he was baptised at St Matthew's Church, Scotland Road, interestingly his father was now James Askin, a marine fireman, mother Mary Emma, 7 Leycester Street. 

He enlisted in Liverpool and was serving in the 18th Battalion, The King’s Liverpool Regiment as Private No 32795 when he was killed in action on the 18th October 1916 during the Battle of the Transloy Ridges which was part of the ongoing Somme Offensive.

18^th Battalion Diary

18^th October 1916

Attacked German trenches commencing 3.40 am. Relieved by 19^th Manchester Regt. Took up position in support Bn trenches W. of Goose Alley.

Graham Maddocks in his book Liverpool Pals gives an overview of the events of the day:

“At 3.40 am the whistles blew, and the Battalion left its assembly trenches, in three waves, approximately fifty yards apart, and began to cross No Man’s Land. Almost immediately, the German Barrage fell on the first wave and halted its advance, so that the second wave soon caught up with it. This was not a great problem at first, and the two combined waves were able to advance together for about 300 yards, whereupon they encountered the German Grid Trench system. On the right of the advance, it was found that the wire was largely intact, apart from a few gaps, and the Germans bombed and machine gunned these gaps, which prevented any further progress. Elsewhere along the trench, however, the wire was cut and there did not seem to be any serious opposition. Nevertheless, the men hesitated to jump down into the German trenches, and instead, began to filter back across to the safety of their own lines.

By this time the third wave had caught up, as had a fourth wave, which had been detailed to mop up any opposition once the trenches had fallen, and all four waves became intermingled which added to the confusion. No less than three attempts were made to try to get the men to go forward again, but each attempt became markedly less successful than its predecessor, and eventually the attack came to a standstill. Although the British assembly trenches had received the attention of the German guns, the attackers in No Mans Land had not come under any great intensity of fire up until this point.

However, once it became obvious to the Germans that the attack was disorganised and faltering, they began to fire into the massed men from the flanks. It was probably this that finally settled the issue and convinced the Pals that they could no longer gain the enemy trenches, and all four waves, now merged into one, began to retreat to their own lines. The whole attack had been an abysmal failure, and no ground had been gained at all”.       

He now rests at Warlencourt British Cemetery, France. 

Jack was buried close to where he fell, and his grave marked with a cross.  After the war, when graves were concentrated, his body was removed and reinterred in Warlencourt British Cemetery, 5km southwest of Bapaume. The CWGC Graves Registration form shows 2nd Liverpools (2nd Pals Battalion?).

Warlencourt Cemetery is entirely a concentration cemetery, begun late in 1919 when graves were brought in from small cemeteries and the battlefields of Warlencourt and Le Sars.  The Graves Registration form shows graves from “Le Sars 6/1, 6/2, Hexham Road, Seven Elms”.

Graves were brought in from the original cemeteries at Hexham Road (Le Sars), and Seven Elms (Flers), as well as over 3,000 British graves due to the fighting which took place around the Butte de Warlencourt from the autumn of 1916 to the spring of 1917, and again in the German advance and retreat of 1918.   The cemetery now contains 3,505 Commonwealth burials and commemorations of the First World War, 1,823 of which are unidentified. 

His family placed notices in the local newspapers on the first anniversary of his death:

 

His sister Emma, address 7 Leycester Street, Kirkdale, received Jack’s Army effects, Army Pay of £1 19s 5d and a War Gratuity of £3, and was awarded a pension of 5/- a week from August 1917.