Name
Henry (Harry) Stephen Garner
Conflict
First World War
Date of Death / Age
23/08/1917
34
Rank, Service Number & Service Details
Private
27337
Somerset Light Infantry
6th Bn.
Awards: Service Medals/Honour Awards
British War and Victory medals
Cemetery/Memorial: Name/Reference/Country
TYNE COT MEMORIAL
Panel 41 to 42 and 163A
Belgium
Headstone Inscription
Not Researched
UK & Other Memorials
Christchurch Memorial, Chorleywood, Memorial Hall Plaque, Chorleywood, Not on the Heronsgate memorial
Pre War
Harry was born on the 16th of March 1883 in Saham Toney, Norfolk, and baptised there, together with his older sister Ethel Sophia, on the 30th of May 1885. His parents were Stephen, an Agricultural Labourer, and Sophia (nee Newton) Garner.
From the 23rd of August 1886 to the 12th of March 1891 Harry was a pupil at the Berner Street School London. This school served children whose physical and/or mental needs could not be met by a regular Board School. On the 1891 census Harry was back home with his family at Coburg Lane, Saham Toney. In 1901 Harry appears to be a patient awaiting a calliper at the Norfolk and Norwich Hospital in Norwich, although it is not certain that this is the same man.
In 1903 Harry married Minnie Alice Hunt of Heronsgate, Chorley Wood, Herts. The marriage being recorded in both Saham Toney, on the 26th of April and Chorleywood on the 4th of May. Their children Wilfred Henry and Peggy Beatrice were born in 1908 and 1910. Harry has not been traced in 1911 but Minnie and the children were living The Swillett, Chorleywood along with her sisters Beatrice and Amy, and Beatrice’s husband Thomas Stockley. Minnie was described as a Fancy Draper.
He is recorded as enlisting in Bury St Edmunds.
Wartime Service
The 6th Battalion was raised in Taunton in August 1914 and attached to 43rd Brigade 14th(Light) Division. They landed in France in May 1915 seeing numerous actions on the Western Front during the remainder of the war.
Harry was killed in the early stages of the Third Battle of Ypres which lasted from the 31st of July to the 10th of November 1917. On the 20th of August the Battalion moved up to the front line trenches south of the Menin Road preparatory to an assault on Inverness Wood. In intense fighting the wood was captured on the 22nd but lost again on the 24th.
Between the 21st and the 24th Battalion casualties were 48 killed, 220 wounded, 76 missing.
Acknowledgments
Malcolm Lennox, Mike Collins
