Brown, Richard

BORN LEEDS 1883. SON OF GEORGE AND SARAH ANN BROWN. HE ENLISTED IN THE 12TH HULL PALS. HIS WIFE ELLEN (CAPES) LIVED AT THIS ARMY ADDRESS & 16 OXFORD STREET, HULL.
Hull Pals Memorial Post. PRIVATE RICHARD BROWN 12/25. Born in Copmanthorpe, York in 1883 Richard was the youngest of seven children to George and Sarah Ann Brown. His father died in 1895 leaving Sarah to raise the family alone. A General Labourer by trade, Richard lived with his wife Ellen and two children- James and Sarah Ann Jnr- at 3 Ann’s Place, Sykes Street, Hull. He enlisted on 14th September 1914 joining the 12th Battalion East Yorkshire Regiment, 3rd Hull Pals; and life went from bad to worse. After serving in Egypt he arrived in France in March 1916 and entered the trenches at Englebelmer later that month. He looked on as his friends and comrades were whittled away by the day-to-day ‘natural wastage’ of the Western Front. He was given 14 days Field Punishment No.1 in August, and on 10th September tragedy struck at home when his only son died of gastro-enteritis. Richard was killed in action on 13th November 1916 during the last desperate action of the Somme campaign. He is buried in Euston Road Cemetery; he was 33 years old. The war’s real victim was his young wife and remaining daughter, cast to the wind in a nation with no Welfare State.