Name
Harry Stanley Parsons
1885
Conflict
First World War
Date of Death / Age
02/11/1914
Rank, Service Number & Service Details
Lance Corporal
8262
Bedfordshire Regiment
1st Battalion
Awards: Service Medals/Honour Awards
1914 (Mons) Star (with Clasp & Roses), British War and Victory medals
Cemetery/Memorial: Name/Reference/Country
BETHUNE TOWN CEMETERY
III.A.40
France
Headstone Inscription
None
UK & Other Memorials
Holy Trinity Church Wall Memorial, Potten End
Pre War
Harry Stanley Parsons was born in on 27 December 1885 in Bloomsbury, Middlesex, the son of Henry and Agnes Parsons, and baptised at St George, Bloomsbury, on 21 March 1886, the church where his parents had been married in July 1880. They were then living at 5 Russell Mews, Camden where his father was working as a Coachman.
Although a death record cannot be found, it is assumed his mother died, as his father remarried in 1892 to Ruth Elizabeth Viccars.
By the 1901 Census, the family had moved to The Fox Beer House, Potten End, Great Gaddesden, Herts where his father was the Beer Housekeeper and also kept a nursery. Harry was a 15 year old Cattleboy on a Farm.
His father continued to run the Fox Inn on the 1911 Census but Harry had left the family home and is listed as Stanley Parsons, (born in Bloomsbury) a Private with the 2nd Battalion, Bedfordshire Regiment stationed in Bermuda.
Wartime Service
He was already a serving soldier at the outbreak of war with the 1st Battalion, Bedfordshire Regiment which was based at Mullingar in Ireland. The Battalion landed in France on 16 August 1914 and were involved in the early engagements of the war, They fought at the Battle of Mons and the stand at Le Cateau, the Battles of the Marne and Aisne, followed by the Battle of Le Bassee.
The war diary indicates that the Battalion were positioned in trenches near Festubert from 23 - 26 October and were subjected to constant attacks during night and day, which, although successfully repulsed, resulted in 14 men being killed or wounded. There were also three men wounded during the clearing of trenches on 30-31 October. Either of these actions may have been when Harry sustained the wounds from which he died at No. 6 Clearing Hospital, Bethune on 2 November 1914, age 29. He is buried at Bethune Town Cemetery.
Additional Information
His father received his pay owing of £7 5s 9d and his stepmother Ruth received a war gratuity of £5.
Acknowledgments
Brenda Palmer
Jonty Wild, dacorumheritage.org.uk, hemelatwar.org.
