BORN HULL 1896. SON OF TOM RICHARD BROWN & LAURA HODGSON, OF, 106, SEVERN STREET, HULL (WAR PENSION ADDRESS).
HIS NAME IS LISTED ON THE NORTH EASTERN RAILWAY WW1 ROLL OF HONOUR. HDM 9/6/17 & 20/6/17. EMPLOYED BY MR WILLIS, AS A MOTOR DRIVER AND WORKED ONE YEAR WITH THE ‘HULL MAIL’. HIS DEATH WAS REPORTED, WITH HIS PHOTOGRAPH, IN THE HULL DAILY MAIL ON 6TH JUNE 1917. *
Hull Pals Memorial Post. PRIVATE LEONARD HODGSON BROWN 21587. Born 1896, the second of seven children, to Tom and Laura Brown of 106, Severn Street, Hull. Leonard had worked as a Motor Driver prior to enlistment on 11th December 1915. As we have discussed on previous posts, a good many men enlisted late in 1915 to avoid the ignominy of entering the army a conscript. The Conscription Act was passed in January 1916 and Leonard would undoubtedly have been called up. A Volunteer stood in the middle ground. He lacked the authenticity and acceptability of a Regular Soldier, but he was considered more worthy than a Conscript and treated accordingly. Bullets and shells weren’t so choosy. Leonard was killed in action on May 23rd 1917 and is buried at Bailleul Road East Cemetery, St.Laurent-Blangy. Private Surfleet, who so brilliantly described being under a bombardment of high explosive 5.9’s, also wrote of the other type of shell, gas: “The bombardment lasted about half an hour and was immediately followed by a steady gas-shell bombardment on our light artillery just to our rear. The ‘whirring’ of these shells passing overhead and the dull ‘plonk’ of their landing (sounding like host of ‘duds’) was very weird and as our guns stopped firing, we got a peculiarly isolated sort of feeling, as if we were left on our own in those strange and insecure surroundings. The wind was blowing from the rear, so we soon got the gas coming over our bits of trench. The signal went round in a flash and we pulled on our box-respirators as quickly as possible. Some of us were not at all sure of the necessity and took them off to see how things were going on: we did not take much convincing then.”
