306091 Pte Joseph L Prince, 2/8th Bn, King's (Liverpool Regt)

306091 Private Joseph Leo Prince of the 2/8th Battalion, King's (Liverpool Regiment), was killed in action on the 22nd July 1917. He was 19 years old, the son of John and Mary Prince of 111 Elliott Street, Preston, Lancashire. He is buried in the Cite Bonjean Military Cemetery at Armentieres.

At the going down of the sun, and in the morning, WE WILL REMEMBER THEM.

Sources:

Ancestry (MIC)
Soldiers Died in The Great War
Army Service Numbers
The Commonwealth War Graves Commission

9735 Pte John Harold Noble, 1st Bn, Lincolnshire Regt

9735 Private John Harold Noble of the 1st Battalion, Lincolnshire Regiment, was killed in action on the 28th January 1916.

John Noble was born in the village of Girton near Newark in Nottinghamshire. He was living in Normanton when he enlisted at Lincoln in June or July 1914. He arrived overseas on the 19th January 1915 and had therefore served on the Western Front for just over a year before he was killed.

John's birth was registered at Newark in the June quarter of 1896. He appears on the 1901 census as the four-year-old son of John and Emma Noble, and the sibling of George Noble (aged six), Albert Noble (aged three) and Horis Noble (aged one). John Noble senior was working as a domestic gardener and the family was living in Girton. Private Noble is buried in the Cite Bonjean Military Cemetery in Armentieres, France. He would have been eighteen years old when he died.

At the going down of the sun, and in the morning, WE WILL REMEMBER THEM.

Sources:

Ancestry.co.uk (MIC, BMD, 1901 census)
Army Ancestry
Army Service Numbers 1881-1918
Commonwealth War Graves Commission
Soldiers Died in The Great War

L/6899 Pte Harry Jarvis Bobbins, 1st Bn, Middx Regt

L/6899 Private Harry Jarvis Bobbins of the 1st Battalion, Middlesex Regiment, died of wounds on the 13th January 1915. He was born in St George's, west London and enlisted in London in January or February 1901.

According to the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, Harry was the son of Mrs. Amelia Bobbins, of Marylebone Lane, London, and the husband of Mary Bobbins, of 75, Northway, Brentfield Estate, Willesden, London. He also has an entry in De Ruvigny's Roll of Honour (Volume 1, page 40), which however, yields no additional information. His medal index card indicates that he arrived overseas on the 14th September 1914.

Harry appears on the 1891 census as a 10 year old resident at Leopold House in Mile End, east London. This was a home for orphaned boys between the ages of ten and 13 and had been opened in 1883. You can read more about Leopold House, and see photographs of it, here. Harry is recorded on the census simply as being ten years old and having been born in England. I have been unable to find Harry on the 1901 census but he would certainly have been serving with the Middlesex Regiment at this time.

Harry married Mary Hodgkiss at Willesden, west London, in the June quarter of 1910. Unless he had extended his terms of service, he would have been on the army reserve at this time. The following year, a son - also named Harry Jarvis Bobbins - was born. His birth was registered in the September quarter of 1911. A second son - John C Bobbins - followed in 1912 (birth registered in the December quarter of that year) - and a daughter - Alice M Bobbins - whose birth was registered in the March quarter of 1914. When he died, therefore, Harry left a widow and three children aged four, two and under one year - coincidentally almost exactly the same ages as my own three children on this date, 95 years on.

Harry Bobbins is buried in Cite Bonjean Military Cemetery in Armentieres.

At the going down of the sun, and in the morning, WE WILL REMEMBER THEM.

Sources:

Ancestry.co.uk (MIC, De Ruvigny's Roll of Honour, BMD, 1891 census)
Army Ancestry
Army Service Numbers 1881-1918
Commonwealth War Graves Commission
Soldiers Died in The Great War