BORN COTTINGHAM 1896. SON OF ABEL & ELIZA ARCHBUTT (1863-1936), OF COTTINGHAM; 134 , NEWSTEAD STREET, HULL (1911 CENSUS), & 8, BEECH GROVE, PRINCES ROAD, HULL (ARMY & WAR PENSION ADDRESS). HIS MOTHER MARRIED AN ARMY PENSIONER. HE HAD A SISTER, LILIAN MAY ARCHBUTT AND ONE HALF BROTHER, ERNEST ALBERT HUDSON. WORKED AS A DRAPER’S ERRAND BOY. DECRIBED AS 5 FOOT, 8 INCHES TALL, 34-36 INCH CHEST, 130 LBS WEIGHT, GOOD PHYSICAL DEVELOPMENT.
ENLISTED IN THE 12TH EYR (HULL PALS), ON 19TH JULY 1915. POSTED TO FRANCE, ON 16TH APRIL 1916. DIED OF SEVERE GUNSOT WOUNDS, ON 30TH JUNE 1916, AGED 18, AT NO:35 CASULATY CLEARING STATION. HE HAD SERVED IN THE ARMY FOR 348 DAYS. BURIED AT DOULLENS COMMUNAL CEMETERY, FRANCE.
Hull Pals Memorial Post. PRIVATE JOHN HENRY ARCHBUTT 10/1441. Born in Cottingham in 1896, John was the youngest of three children and only son of Abel and Eliza Archbutt, of Cottingham. John never knew his father. Abel Archbutt died when his son was still a baby, and Eliza married Ernest Hudson in April 1903. The family lived at 9 Beech Grove, Princes Road, Hull. John worked as a errand boy and Fish Merchant before the war and was too young initially, but enlisted on his 19th birthday. He was severely wounded on 30th June 1916 and evacuated to 35th Casualty Clearing Station with severe shrapnel wounds over a third of his body. He didn’t last the day. John Henry Archbutt is buried in Doullens Communal Cemetery Extension No.1; he was 19 years old. His mother received as 15 shilling weekly war pension.
The official battalion history says of that day:
“Enemy artillery fairly quiet. Trench mortars active.”
