Pte 406176 Henry Key Stafford

In 1901 his widowed mother, Ruth, is aged 32, and is living at 1 Morton Street, Middleton, with Henry, 2, and John, 1. Ruth is working at home, as a dressmaker on her own account.

 

His mother remarried in 1903 to William Bamforth, who had a daughter Frances.

 

The 1911 census finds the family at 15 Tetlow Street, Middleton. His stepfather, William is a 42 year old jobbing engineer, his mother is also 42 year of age. His stepsister, Frances, is 15, and is a gin winder for a cotton weaver, Henry is 12, part-time at school and part-time employed as a gin carrier for a cotton weaver. His brother John is 11, at school.

 

An online commemorative site states that the Henry was associated with the Morton Street Primitive Methodist Church and School, where he was a member of the choir.

Before enlisting he was employed at the Times Mill as a packer.

 

The site gives his enlistment date as February 1917, when he would have been 18 years old. He must have lied about his age in order to serve overseas.

He enlisted in Bury and was serving in the 18^th Battalion of The King’s Liverpool Regiment as Private No 406176 when he was killed in action on the 07^th May 1918 aged 19 during the German Spring Offensive. 

Henry's body was not recovered or was subsequently lost as he has no known grave and is commemorated on the Tyne Cot Memorial in Belgium.

Those United Kingdom and New Zealand servicemen who died after August 16th 1917 are named on the Tyne Cot Memorial, a site which marks the furthest point reached by Commonwealth forces in Belgium until nearly the end of the war.

The Tyne Cot Memorial now bears the names of almost 35,000 officers and men whose graves are not known. The memorial, designed by Sir Herbert Baker with sculpture by Joseph Armitage and F.V. Blundstone, was unveiled by Sir Gilbert Dyett on 20 June 1927.

The memorial forms the north-eastern boundary of Tyne Cot Cemetery, which was established around a captured German blockhouse or pill-box used as an advanced dressing station.

Although his pension card shows Killed in Action, and not Missing, his family made enquiries with the British Red Cross on 20th November 1918.

 

His pension card, giving his battalion as the 26th K.L.R. (a Territorial Force Bn), in the name of his mother Ruth, at 15 Tetlow Street, Middleton, shows she was awarded a pension of 10/- a week from November 1918.  Her address is later given as 66 Ribble Road, Central Drive, Blackpool.  

 

Another pension card gives his regiment as the Lancashire Fusiliers.  

Soldiers’ Effects also shows 26th Bn crossed out and replaced with 18th K.L.R. His mother received Henry’s Army effects, including a War Gratuity of £4-10s.

 

His mother was widowed again in 1928, and appears to have returned to Middleton, where she died in 1948, aged 79.