BORN HULL 11/11/1891. BAPTISED AT ST CHARLES BORROMEO , HULL, ON 22/11/1891.
SON OF THE LATE WILLIAM RYAN (1844-1903) & CAROLINE MARSHALL (1858-1907), OF 3, ARNETTS PLACE, NORTH STREET, HULL (1901 CENSUS) AND SYKES STREET, HULL. SON OF A DOCK LABOURER. HE HAD FOUR BROTHERS AND FOUR SISTERS. HIS PARENTS DIED WHILE HE WAS YOUNG AND HE BECAME A MERCHANT SEAMAN (1911 CENSUS). HE WAS ALSO A FORMER PRISONER. HE RECEIVED 5 MONTHS FOR BREAKING INTO 153, ALBERT AVENUE, HULL, DURING DAYLIGHT TO STEAL JEWELLERY. HE WAS CONVICTED A FURTHER FOUR TIMES BETWEEN 1911- 1914, FOR HOUSE BREAKING AND APPEARED REGULARLY IN THE POLICE GAZETTES FOR HABITUAL CRIMINALS.
HE ENLISTED IN HULL, SERVED AS A LANCE CORPORAL, IN THE 1/4TH EAST YORKSHIRE REGIMENT. KILLED IN ACTION, ON 23/04/1917, AGED 24. COMMEMORATED ON THE ARRAS MEMORIAL, FRANCE.
HIS ARMY EFFECTS WERE LEFT TO HIS SISTER, JULIA WILKINSON, 15 WILFREDS TERRACE, NORNABELL STREET, HULL. HE LIVED WITH OTHER SISTERS, LILY AND NELLIE, AT 7, ALBERTS TERRACE, TERRY STREET, HULL.
HIS NAME IS LISTED ON THE ST CHARLES’ BORROMEO CHURCH MEMORIAL, JARRATT STREET, HULL, WITH HIS TWO BROTHERS, JOHN AND WILLIAM RYAN.
HE IS REPORTED KILLED ON THE SYKES STREET ROLL OF HONOUR (Hull Daily Mail 09 October 1916).
HE WAS ONE OF THREE BROTHERS KILLED IN THE WAR. PTE, WILLIAM RYAN, 1ST EYR, DIED ON 27/10/1914, AGED 28. JOHN RYAN DIED AT SEA, ON 09/10/1917, AGED 22. THEIR YOUNGEST BROTHER, GUNNER, JAMES RYAN SURVIVED THE WAR.
Arras Battle, April 1917 – The 1/4th East Yorkshires did not go into the line until 15 April, when they moved up from Arras in support. The battalion led the division’s attack at the Second Battle of the Scarpe, which began on 23 April. The 1/4th East Yorkshires and 1/4th Green Howards went forward at Zero hour (04.45) with ‘great dash’, supported by tanks of A Section, 10 Company, D Battalion, Tank Corps. The infantry got too close to their own barrage, which was creeping forward too slowly. Despite serious casualties, especially among officers, they captured the first objective (the Blue Line) on time, apart from the centre, where a party of the enemy held out in a copse on the Chérisy–Guémappe road. However, A Company took the copse by 08.00 with the help of tank D3, and dug in on its eastern side. A mixed party of D, A and B companies captured a battery of German 7.7 cm field guns near the copse. By now the battalion only had three officers and 200 men in the line, with their flanks ‘in the air’, and were almost surrounded when the German counter-attacks began. The battalion was forced back to its starting line, the captured guns lost, though they had already sent back some hundreds of German prisoners. The second tank (D4, ‘Diana’) covered the retirement with its 6-pdr guns until repeatedly hit by anti-tank rifles and set on fire. The objectives were retaken by a follow-up attack by 50th (N) Division later in the day. The battalion’s losses in this action were 17 officers and 352 other ranks. The remnants marched back to Arras and reorganised as two companies.
50th (N) Division was pulled back into reserve in May 1917, and then returned to trench-holding in June. 1/4th East Yorkshires absorbed reinforcements and resumed its four-company organisation. On 26/27 June it was in support for a minor attack, and C Company and a platoon of D Company took over the captured line at dusk on 27 June. However, the Germans put down a heavy bombardment at 07.00 the next morning, which continued all day until they counter-attacked at 16.30. By then C Company had lost 75 per cent of its men, and it and the D Company platoon were forced back. The line was strengthened by other troops, but 1/4th East Yorkshires had lost 106 officers and men, killed, wounded and missing. Although it was not involved in the early stages of the Flanders Offensive (the Third Battle of Ypres), there was active Trench warfare along the division’s front throughout the summer, with trench raiding and gas attacks. In October the division was relieved and after 10 days’ training at Achiet-le-Petit it moved to the Ypres sector.
If you have any more information, regarding the surviving brother James Ryan, please contact their Great Neice -Sue Hodgson [mailto:sue@dodge9.karoo.co.uk] who contacted 21/02/2017.
