PRIVATE JOHN WILLIAM HESTER 13/814. Born in June 1891. John married Maud Percy in January 1914 and the couple lived at 5 Empringham Terrace, Daltry Street, Hull. Before the war John worked as a Coal Seaman, but he answered the call of King and Country, enlisting at City Hall, on 25th November 1914, originally in the 13th Battalion. He trained with the Hull Pals, at Hornsea, Beverley and Ripon throughout 1915 before shipping to Egypt to defend the Suez Canal from the Turks that December. He arrived in the trenches of the Western Front in March 1916 and was a veteran of the Somme and Oppy Wood. The 13th Battalion was disbanded and absorbed into the 10th in January 1918 and John became a member of ‘B’ Company. He was killed in action on 12th April 1918 as the company defended the road from Doulieu where they had outposts under heavy shellfire from a field gun which had been moved up to defend the German advance. It was at close range and what was left of the road was a total bloodbath with ‘B’ Company losing all officers bar one, and large numbers of ‘other ranks’. John’s body was never recovered and his name is commemorated on the Ploegsteert Memorial, he was 27 years old.
His wife, Maud and children, Louis and Edith Hester, moved to 3 Cottingham Avenue, Osbourne Street, Hull. Maud requested information about him in the Hull Daily Mail 24/06/1918.
