Pte 31707 Joseph Edward Barker

• Age: 38
• From: Bootle, Liverpool
• Regiment: 1 GN MANCHESTER
• Died on Thursday 4th July 1918
• Commemorated at: Delhi Memorial
  Panel Ref: Face 23

Joseph Edward was born in Bootle in the June quarter of 1880.  His parents Samuel Barker and Martha Jane Hughes were married in 1877 and had four surviving children; he had a sister Hannah Florence, born in 1877, and brothers Albert 1884 and Harold 1890.  His father was born in Bradford, and his mother in Liverpool. Joseph was named after his paternal grandfather.

In 1881 the family is living at 2 Ashcroft Street, Bootle. His father is a builder’s merchant. Daughter Hannah  Florence is 3, Joseph is 1.

At the time of the 1891 census the family is living in Elson Road, Formby.  His parents are both 36, his father living on his own means.  Joseph is 11, Albert 6, and Harold 1 year old.  His sister Florence is with relatives in West Kirby, Cheshire.

In 1901 they are at “Silverdale”, Elson Road, Formby.  His father is a builder/employer.  Joseph is 21, an apprentice fitter.  Sister Florence is 23.  Also Wilson and Maria Fortune, visitors from Yorkshire, and Mary Higgins, domestic servant. His mother is visiting the Vestey family in Hertfordshire. His brothers Albert, 16, and Harold, 11, in Grange, West Kirby, pupils at Calday Hill Grammar School.

In 1911 they are still at 8 Elson road, Formby. Father is a builder, employer.  Again, no mother in the household. Joseph is 31, single, and is employed as a mechanical engineer. Also in the household his married brother Harold, 21, and sister in law Dorothy. 

Joseph enlisted at St George's Hall in Liverpool on 31st August 1914 as Private 15867, joining the 17^th Battalion of The King’s Liverpool Regiment. He was subsequently transferred to the 1^st Garrison Bn, Manchester Regiment as Private 31707, although it is not known when, as his service record has not survived, but possibly after being wounded with the 17th Battalion. 

Garrison battalions were used to free trained and experienced soldiers from garrison duty in far flung places in the Empire for service on the front.  The 1^st Garrison Bn Manchester Regiment had left Prescot, after training at Knowsley, at 9.15 p.m. on 24^th  February 1916, arriving at Devonport the following morning.  That afternoon they sailed on board the ‘Kinfauns’ with an escort of two destroyers. On 5^th March they passed Alexandria and then through the Suez Canal. The battalion arrived in Bombay, India, on 14^th March 1916. They moved nearly 1,000 miles to Fyzabad, a city in Uttar Pradesh on the Ghaghra River in northeast India, and about 200 miles from Nepal. 

Joseph died, probably of disease, on 04^th July 1918, aged 38. At the end of July the battalion left India for Singapore. 

Joseph is commemorated on the Delhi Memorial in India. 

Of the 13,300 Commonwealth servicemen commemorated by name on the memorial, just over 1,000 lie in cemeteries to the west of the River Indus, where maintenance was not possible. The remainder died in fighting on or beyond the North West Frontier and during the Third Afghan War, and have no known grave.

The Delhi Memorial also acts as a national memorial to all the 70,000 soldiers of undivided India who died during the years 1914-1921, the majority of whom are commemorated by name outside the confines of India.

The memorial was designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens. It was unveiled by Lord Irwin on 12 February 1931.

Joseph's loss was the second to hit the family as his younger brother Harold also fell. He was Private 21975 of the 20^th Battalion of the King's Liverpool Regiment, he was killed in action at Transloy Ridges on 12^th October 1916. He was 26. Harold is commemorated on the Thiepval Memorial to the Missing, Somme. (see his own biography on this website).

Joseph's mother died in 1920, and his father in 1929.

In 1920 Harold's wife, Dorothy, provided information on Joseph’s living relatives; his brother Albert was living at home with his parents at 8 Elson Road, Formby; Florence was married and living in Scotland, address unknown (it appears she had emigrated to Canada).

We currently have no further information on Joseph Edward Barker, If you have or know someone who may be able to add to the history of this soldier, please contact us.