Name
Harry Ward
18 Sep 1877
Conflict
First World War
Date of Death / Age
18/04/1917
39
Rank, Service Number & Service Details
Private
22414
Princess Victoria's Royal Irish Fusiliers
1st Bn.
Awards: Service Medals/Honour Awards
1914 /15 Star, British War and Victory medals
Cemetery/Memorial: Name/Reference/Country
AUBIGNY COMMUNAL CEMETERY EXTENSION
II. E.79
France
Headstone Inscription
SLEEP ON BELOVED SLEEP AND TAKE THY REST GOODNIGHT
UK & Other Memorials
Welwyn Village Memorial, St Mary the Virgin Roll of Honour, Welwyn
Pre War
Born in Welwyn on 18 September 1877, son of William and Rose Ward, one of 14 children. He was baptised on 2nd December 1877 at St Mary's Church.
He attended Welwyn National School and sang in the church choir.
On the 1881 Census, the family was living in Mimram Road, Welwyn when his father was a sawyer and his mother a shoe machinist but by 1891 they had moved to The Royal Oak and his father was a beer and shop keeper. Harry worked in a drapery in Welwyn when he was 13 and left home at the age of 15. By 23 he was working as a footman in Kensington. Ten years later he was working in St Marylebone as a packer and lodging in the Edgware Road.
Wartime Service
He volunteered as soon as war broke out in 1914, enlisting in Marylebone, Middx, initially joining the 3rd Battalion Bedfordshire Regiment (formerly 13187, Beds Regt.), but transferring to the 5th Battalion, Royal Irish Fusiliers in 1915.
Harry served both in France from May 1915 and in Serbia and was injured several times, but always returned to the Front, however he eventually died from wounds and the effects of gas at No. 42 CCS France on 18 April 1917, possibly receiving his fatal wounds at the Battle of Arras or the First Battle of Scarpe between 9 and 14 April.
Additional Information
Mrs E Hurry, 3 Church Street, Welwyn, Herts. ordered his headstone inscription: "SLEEP ON BELOVED SLEEP AND TAKE THY REST GOODNIGHT". A memorial service for Harry, as well as Cecil Blake, John Mayes and Percy Mardell was held in Welwyn on April 25th, 1917. Brother Edward Ward killed in action on 5 November 1917. War gratuity of £12 and pay owing of £25 18s 3d awarded to his sister Edith
Acknowledgments
Neil Cooper
Paul Jiggens, Welwyn and District History Society - www.welwynww1.co.uk, Brenda Palmer
