Name
Horace Harrison
1879
Conflict
First World War
Date of Death / Age
21/01/1916
36
Rank, Service Number & Service Details
Private
17436
Bedfordshire Regiment
7th Bn.
"B" Coy.
Awards: Service Medals/Honour Awards
1914 /15 Star, British War and Victory medals
Cemetery/Memorial: Name/Reference/Country
MEAULTE MILITARY CEMETERY
B. 32.
France
Headstone Inscription
REST IN PEACE, BELOVED ONE
UK & Other Memorials
Hemel Hempstead Town Memorial, St John the Evangelist Church Memorial, Boxmoor
Pre War
Horace Harrison was born on 20 May 1879 in Hemel Hempstead, the son of Joseph and Emma Harrison and one of eight children. On the 1881 Census the family were living at Puller Road, Hemel Hempstead where his father was working as a watercress labourer. Horace was educated at Boxmoor School from 15 February 1886 and he successfully completed Standards 1 to 6 before he left on 5 March 1892 to work with his father in the watercress trade.
They had moved to Horsecroft Road, Boxmoor, Hemel Hempstead by 1891 when Horace was an 11 year old scholar, and his father and two brothers worked growing watercress.
By 1901 his father had died and he was living with his widowed mother and siblings at No. 2 Harrison's Cottages, Boxmoor where his mother was a watercress grower and Horace was a watercress labourer.
He first enlisted on 20 December 1895, claiming to be 18 when he was in fact only 16. At his medical he was judged to be nearly 18 and was accepted into the militia, 4th Battalion, Bedfordshire Regiment, signing up for 4 years, but 3 months later he was discharged, having paid £2 to buy himself out on 23 March 1896.
On the 1911 Census he was living as a boarder at the home of Henry and Ann Fisher at Aby, near Alford, Lincolnshire, where he was working as a Cress Cutter. He returned to Hertfordshire on the outbreak of war.
Wartime Service
He attested in Watford in October 1914 and was posted to the 7th Battalion, Bedfordshire Regiment for training. He arrived at Le Havre on 3 September 1915, joining the battalion a few days later. He first saw action near Fricourt, near Albert, France with daily shelling and sniper fire in the trenches.
The battalion war diary for 21 January 1916 records "the enemy fairly active with their trench mortars, one landing in a small dug out in 77 trench containing 4 persons, 1 N.C.O. and 1 man killed". Horace was the man killed. He was 36 and is buried at Meaulte Military Cemetery, France.
Additional Information
His mother, Mrs E Harrison, of Old Fishery Cottages, Boxmoor, Herts., ordered his headstone inscription: "REST IN PEACE, BELOVED ONE". His mother received a war gratuity of £5 and pay owing of £2 12s 8d. She also received a pension of 10 shillings a week. N.B. a note on the pension card states that she was "wholly impaired". She died in 1929.
Acknowledgments
Brenda Palmer
Jonty Wild, www.hemelheroes.com., www.dacorumheritage.org.uk, www.hemelatwar.org.
