Name
John William Church
29th November 1879.
Conflict
First World War
Date of Death / Age
30/03/1918
Rank, Service Number & Service Details
Lieutenant
Hertfordshire Regiment
Awards: Service Medals/Honour Awards
British War and Victory medals
Cemetery/Memorial: Name/Reference/Country
POZIERES MEMORIAL
Panel 89 and 90.
France
Headstone Inscription
He has no Headstone. He is commemorated on the Pozieres Memorial to the missing.
UK & Other Memorials
Hatfield Town Memorial, Hatfield In Memoriam Book, Ind. Plaque, St Etheldredas Church, Bishops Hatfield, Hertfordshire Regimental Memorial, All Saints Church, Hertford, Harrow School Memorials, Oxford University Memorial
Pre War
John William Church was born in Marylebone, London, on 29th November 1879, son of William Selby Church a Medical Doctor (B 1838 in Hatfield) and Sybil Constance Church (nee Briggs) (B 1847 in Marylebone). One of three children.
1881 Census records John aged 2, living with his parents and his elder sister Ursula 4, at 130 Harley Street, St Marylebone, London. In 1887, his brother Godfrey was born. His father William Selby Church was a physician M.D. fellow of R.C.P. practising and farmer of 230 acres emp. 8 men and 3 boys.(*1)
1891 Census records john aged 12, living with his parents and sister Ursula, at Woodside House, Port Kiln Lane, Hatfield. His father still a practising doctor of medicine.
In 1901 John William Church, age 22, was a visitor at Mimm Wood House, Hatfield. John is now working as a solicitor. Although the census states that this John was born in Hatfield not Marylebone.
John married Brenda Pattinson, in August 1908, in Kensington, London.
1911 Census records John as married to Brenda and they have two children, Margaret Sibyl (1yr) and Barbara Brenda (3 mths) and living at Woodside House in Hatfield. John's occupation is given as "Colonial Civil Servant, Director of Education Gold Coast Colony".
Wartime Service
On his enlistment John joined the Middlesex Regiment as Private 380. Later when commissioned as Lieutenant he joined the Hertfordshire Regiment.
He went to France on 13th September 1917, and the Battalion War Diaries for 13th September 1917 record: "Lt. J. W. Church joined the Battalion with a draft of 17 other ranks". The Battalion was at Ascot Camp when he arrived.
On the 20th September 1917, the First Day of the Battle of the Menin Road (Battle of Ypres 1917) John with his Battalion moved from Zwarteleen to the trenches around Image Crescent trench.
It is not known when John was wounded other than it was in the Villers Bretonneux area and he died on the 30th March 1918. The records state he died of wounds, he has no known grave and is commemorated on the Pozieres Memorial to the missing.
The Bishop’s Hatfield Parish Magazine of October 1914, in the second list of men mobilised form Hatfield, recorded: “Church, John, Lieut. – Woodside Place – Middx. Regt.” and in May 1918: “This is perhaps the saddest issue of the magazine since the war broke out, because of the long list of losses which Hatfield has incurred.......
First among the fallen , must we mourn the loss of Lieut., John Church, who had he been spared promises well to have taken a leading position in the country and local affairs, which his father fills today. We quote an extract from a letter of the acting C.O. to show what estimate had been made of him by one who was singularly fitted to judge.
“And here is fitting place for me to chronicle the admiration, respect, and affection I feel for a man who showed himself by his gallant bearing and resource an officer and a gentleman of the highest quality and efficiency. To have had such a comrade as Church during three or four of the most trying days of my wear experience was indeed a stroke of good fortune...........I hope the day will come when I can take him by the hand and tell him face to face what I have written here........Let me note of the conduct of the men. They were simply superb. Of those who did especially well, Christie, Church and Gripper, were the most distinguished. Church did wonders.
From a letter written April 16th by a N.C.O. “You can be sure, Mrs Church that he died a painless death after a week or more of heroic effort, for his example and work were the talk of the survivors; ask who you will, Lieut. Church was a hero and that his end should come on the last of ten or eleven trying days makes the tragedy more acute to bear”.
Only one real regret for such a life is that he leaves no son to carry on his name."
Awarded the Victory Medal and British War Medal.
Additional Information
Hatfield Parish Council Souvenir Committee Ledger: Sir W.C. Church (Father) of Woodside, Hatfield received an “In Memoriam and Roll of Honour Album”.
*1 The Church family appear to have owned Woodside farm from about 1770 to 1938 when Lord Salisbury bought the farm.
Acknowledgments
Stuart Osborne
Stuart Osborne, Jonty Wild, Christine & Derek Martindale, Hatfield Local History Society (www.hatfieldhistory.uk)
