Name
James Harrold
6 May 1887
Conflict
First World War
Date of Death / Age
06/11/1918
31
Rank, Service Number & Service Details
Private
20018
Duke of Cambridge’s Own (Middlesex Regiment)
20th Bn.
Awards: Service Medals/Honour Awards
British War and Victory medals
Cemetery/Memorial: Name/Reference/Country
LESSINES COMMUNAL CEMETERY
W. of the mortuary or on the S. bdry. W. of gate.
Belgium
Headstone Inscription
Not Researched
UK & Other Memorials
Not on the Hitchin memorials
Pre War
James (although some records suggest Harold James Harrold) was born on 6 May 1887(*1) in London and his father was given as John Harrold deceased when James married.
He married Ada May Harrold (née Worbey, b 7 May 1889) on 20 July 1913 in Islington parish church. At that time James was working as a baker’s manager.
At present we do not have enough information to identify James in the census records, however their two children were Ada May (b 6 February 1914) and Frederick James (b 16 August 1915).
Officially James was recorded as born in Islington, Middlesex and loving there when he enlisted in Holloway, Middlesex
Wartime Service
He held Regimental Number G/20018 serving in the 20th Battalion of the Middlesex Regiment.
On 9 November 1916 James was admitted to No 4 Stationary Hospital suffering from rheumatoid arthritis and placed on a sick convoy to Rouen 26 October 1916
He was captured around Boulon on 24 November 1917 and in the German POW records show his date of birth and that his wife was living at 19 St Andrews Place, Hitchin.
He was buried in the Lessines Communal Cemetery, Hainaut in Belgium.
Additional Information
His pension cards record Mrs Ada May Harrold, his widow, as his dependant, living at 7 Providence Row, St. Andrew's Place, Hitchin. It also named their two children Ada May (b 6 February 1914) and Frederick James (b 16 August 1915). She was awarded a war gratuity of £7 on 14 February 1919 and then a pension of 11s 8d a week from 28 July 1919. However she remarried, marrying James Williams on 22 March 1919, and received a marrying widow’s gratuity of £35 15s, She was later recorded at 32 Oxford Street, Leicester
His name does not seem appear on any of the North Hertfordshire war memorials and his only known connection to Hitchin is his wife's address.
*1 this date was taken from German POW records, but other records suggest it might have been 1889.
Acknowledgments
Adrian Dunne, David C Baines, Jonty Wild
