Private, 8th Battalion, York and Lancaster Regiment. Service number 32528.
Early life:
John was born in West Hartlepool in 1883 and his birth was registered in Hartlepool in the second quarter of the year.
His parents were James and Elizabeth Alderson.
He was christened there on April 18. He was eight years old in the 1891 census and his parents had moved the family to Vale Mill Lane on the Lees side of the valley along with his sister and three brothers. Their father James was a clerk for a worsted manufacturer. In 1901 he was eighteen years old and they had moved to 37, Station Terrace. His father was a bookkeeper and John was now a butcher. By 1911 John was twenty-eight and living at Reeth in North Yorkshire with his parents, all three worked in their own shop which was a grocery, provisions merchant and fruiterer.
War service:
On February 11, 1916 at the age of 32 years and 11 months he enlisted with the York and Lancaster Regiment at Reeth. He wasn’t called up until the next year as on January 26, 1917 he was mobilised. He was posted to the 2nd Training Reserve Battalion on January 28, with the service number TR 5/4989. Towards the end of his training he was posted on April 10 to the 3rd Battalion with the service number 5/9939. and two weeks later transferred to the British Expeditionary Force on April 27th and went overseas to France. On May 12th he was transferred to the 8th Battalion York and Lancaster Regiment with a new service number 32528. The next month he was wounded in action on June 7 and posted missing for the same date. He was never found and his death was eventually presumed on the date he went missing. He is named on the Menin Gate at Ypres along with 55,000 other missing men.
WO-95/2188/1/2. 8th Battalion York and Lancaster Regiment.
War diary extract for June 1917.
Mount Sorrell.
6th. Trenches. The 9th York and Lancaster took over the line on the night of the 5/6th. We took up assembly positions – B & C Coys MAPLE ST, A & D MT SORRELL dugouts, Battalion HQ same place
as A & D. Another quiet day.
7th. We shared in the great victory by the 2nd Army. Zero hour 3.10 am. The 9th Y&L took their objective in fine style, and at 6.50 am we left their new line to attack the final objective (ZILLEBEKE map – IMAGE CRESCENT I.36.b.0.3 to I.30.d.5.1. approx) This we took, with a strong point about 50 yards in advance of the right flank, also the KNOLL, an eminence in NO MANS LAND in front of our centre. Our Officer Casualties were 3 killed, 6 wounded. Estimated Other Ranks Casualties 300. No counter attacks after the position had once been consolidated.
John was one of the 300 casualties that day.
Post war:
On August 28, 1918 John left £2 6s 9d to Miss Millicent Smith from his soldier’s will. We do not know very much about who she was, but there was a Millicent Smith living at 18, Park Avenue in Oakworth in 1911. She was two years younger than John and her family was from Denholme. If this was her she was living at 14, Hebble Row with her mother in 1939 and she died unmarried in 1963 at the age of 78 in the Worth Valley.
John was awarded the British War Medal and Victory medal for his war service.
He is remembered on the Oakworth War Memorial, Reeth War Memorial and St Andrew’s Church memorial at Grinton, North Yorkshire.
Note:
There is some doubt as to John’s connection with Oakworth but as both of his parents had died in the early 1920s at Reeth in North Yorkshire where John is named on their war memorial, then there was no family member living in Oakworth to put his name forward to be added to Oakworth’s War Memorial, which was built in 1938 and possibly even the last Great War memorial to be built. It is intriguing what his relationship was with Millicent Smith who was still living in Oakworth at the time and he named her in his will. Was Millicent his fiancée? She does not appear to have ever married and is buried in Oakworth Cemetery as Millicent Smith. Perhaps she never got over her loss and remained a spinster for the rest of her life, but we suspect she made sure he was remembered on Oakworth’s War Memorial.
Information sources:
England & Wales, Civil Registration Marriage Index, 1837-1915.
North Yorkshire, England, Church of England Marriages and Banns, 1754-1940.
England & Wales, Civil Registration Birth Index, 1837-1915.
England & Wales, Christening Index, 1530-1980.
1891 England Census.
1901 England Census.
1911 England Census.
British Army WWI Service Records, 1914-1920.
Soldiers Died in the Great War, 1914-1919.
British Army WWI Medal Rolls Index Cards, 1914-1920.
WWI Service Medal and Award Rolls, 1914-1920.
Army Registers of Soldiers’ Effects, 1901-1929.
Commonwealth War Graves Commission.
WWI War Diaries (France, Belgium and Germany), 1914-1920.
WO-95/2188/1/2. 8th Battalion York and Lancaster Regiment.
1921 England Census.
1939 England and Wales Register.
England & Wales, Civil Registration Death Index, 1916-2007.
England & Wales, National Probate Calendar (Index of Wills and Administrations), 1858-1995.
