Brown, Henry

BORN HULL 1888. THE SIXTH SON OF EMMA FAWCETT & WILLIAM BROWN, OF THE GROCER’S SHOP, CHAPMAN STREET, HULL. HIS WIFE MARY FRANCES (SMITH) LIVED ABOVE & 1 MAIN STREET FOUNTAIN ROAD, HULL. HE JOINED THE “HULL COMMERCIALS”. SERVED WITH THE 10TH EAST YORKSHIRE REGIMENT, IN EGYPT AND FRANCE. DIED OF WOUNDS, ON 27/04/1918, AGED 30. HIS DEATH WAS REPORTED IN THE HDM, ON 13/05/1918.
Hull Pals Memorial Post. PRIVATE HENRY BROWN 23959. Born December 1887, Henry was the ninth of eleven children to William and Emma Brown of 1 Chapman Street, Hull. He had followed his father and elder siblings into the Grocery trade and the family may have run their own shop, or at the very least worked together. Henry was husband to Mary Frances Brown and at the time of his attesting on 23rd November 1915, the couple resided at 1 Main Street in Hull and his trade is listed as ‘Fish and Ice Merchant’. He was called up on 30th May 1916 and will have trained as a soldier whilst news of the Somme campaign filtered back from France. The casualty lists printed in the papers must have made terrifying reading to anyone preparing to ship out to the trenches that summer, and it’s hard to imagine how that must have impacted on morale in the training camps. Henry joined C Company and was fatally wounded during the trench raid in the small hours of 27th April 1918, as men from the 10th Battalion under the command of Captain Pearce, attacked German positions around the ruins of La Becque Farm. His comrades managed to get him back to the safety of his own trenches and he was evacuated to either the 2nd or 15th Casualty Clearing Stations at Ebblinghem, where he died of his wounds later that day. He is buried at Ebblinghem Miltary Cemetery; he was 30 years old.