Name
Percival Harry Wright
Conflict
First World War
Date of Death / Age
Rank, Service Number & Service Details
Private
126341
Royal Horse Artillery
Awards: Service Medals/Honour Awards
Cemetery/Memorial: Name/Reference/Country
Headstone Inscription
Not Researched
UK & Other Memorials
Biography
Most of what is known of Percival comes from the 1918 Absent Voters’ List. He was Private 126341 Royal Horse Artillery, with his home address given as The White Horse Inn, which was where The Motte and Bailey now stands on Great Green. This is the same address as given for James William Wright, who also served and survived - perhaps his brother, and for Alfred Nightingale, another soldier who served and survived. The Kelly’s Trade Directories provide further information. It appears that after the war he had several occupations, as the various directories of 1929, 1935 and 1937 list him as motor engineer, motor coach proprietor and taverner, all located at The White Horse PH. He ran the ‘Pirton Belle’, a bus service that ran from Pirton to Hitchin, Pirton to Luton and Pirton to Letchworth. That business was sold to Birch Brothers, together with the routes, in January 1938.
His headstone in St. Mary’s churchyard records that he died on January 31st 1949 aged fifty-nine, so he would have been born around 1890 and would therefore have been about twenty-four at the outbreak of war.
Acknowledgments
Text from the book ‘The Pride of Pirton’ by Jonty Wild, Tony French & Chris Ryan used with author's permission
