Name
Harold Barker
Conflict
First World War
Date of Death / Age
04/11/1918
18
Rank, Service Number & Service Details
Private
TR/161734
The Queen’s (Royal West Surrey Regiment)
53rd Bn.
Awards: Service Medals/Honour Awards
Not Yet Researched
Cemetery/Memorial: Name/Reference/Country
HITCHIN CEMETERY
Section W Grave 165
United Kingdom
Headstone Inscription
Gone from sight but not from memory
UK & Other Memorials
Hitchin Town Memorial,
St Mary's Church Roll of Honour (Book), Hitchin,
Hitchin British Boys' School Memorial, Hitchin,
Diocese - Book of Remembrance, St Albans Cathedral, St Albans,
Diocese of St Albans - ROH, St Albans Cathedral, St Albans
Pre War
Harold was born in Cambridge circa 1901 and the eldest son of Alfred and Alice Barker who lived in Cambridgeshire and later at 2, Cambridge Terrace and 77, Walsworth Road, Hitchin.
In 1901 they were living at 6 Marshall Road, Cherry Hinton, Cambridge. Alfred was working as a coach builder. At this time their only child was Harold aged 6 months., but a niece, Edith Barker was with them.
By 1911 the family were living at 2 Cambridge Terrace, Hitchin. Alfred was now working as a wheelwright. With Alfred and Alice were children: Harold (10), Stanley (9), Alfred (8), Alice (6) and Olive (2). The census recorded that they had been married for 12 years and all their 5 children were all living.
They probably moved to Hitchin between 1905 and 1909 because all their children before Olive were born in Cambridge.
Harold attended Hitchin Boys British School and
Before the war he was employed by P.H. Barker & Son, timber merchants and joiners of Hitchin. He officially recorded as a resident of Hitchin and enlisting in Bedford.
Wartime Service
His Regimental Number was TR161734 and, at the time of his death, he was still in training in the 53rd Young Soldiers Battalion. He joined the Army on the 23rd October 1918 and had only been in the service for two weeks when he contracted influenza which was raging in epidemic proportions at the time. He died of double pneumonia in St. Alban's Hospital and is buried in Hitchin Cemetery at Grave W.165.
He was a boyhood friend of George Ryall, they enlisted on the same day – their numbers are just 8 apart. They died in the same hospital within 24 hours of each other and are buried in the same cemetery.
His Commonwealth War Graves Commission headstone bears the additional inscription "Gone from sight but not from memory".
Additional Information
He was a boyhood friend of George Ryall. They enlisted on the same day and died in the same hospital within twenty-four hours of each other.
Pension records give his father’s address as 2 Cambridge Terrace, Nightingale Terrace, Hitchin, and he was awarded Harold’s pension of 7s per week from 1 July 1919.
Acknowledgments
Adrian Dunne, David C Baines, Jonty Wild
