Cobby, Joseph Henry

BORN HULL 1895. HULL PAL. SON OF HENRY & REBECCA COBBY ABOVE. DIED OF FEVER IN HOSPITAL, FRANCE. ON HULL TECHNICAL COLLEGE ROH. TELEPHONE CLERK.
Hull Pals Memorial Post. PRIVATE JOSEPH HENRY COBBY 10/1355. Born 1895, the eldest and only son of Henry and Rebecca Cobby of 74 Sandringham Street, Hull. Joseph was a Telephone Clerk prior to enlistment on 25th May 1915. He served in Egypt and on the Somme, and very possibly at Oppy Wood. I say ‘very possibly’ because Joseph’s demise is out of the ordinary for these posts. He died of Fever in the hospital base camp at Wimereux on 13th June 1917, and is buried in the Communal Cemetery there. He was 22 years old. Interestingly, Wimereux was also the headquarters of the WAAC (Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps). Formed in 1916, it was an attempt to free up men for the front line by allowing women to do the ‘softer’ jobs behind the lines. Their tasks were various and often put them in as much danger as the men. In one attack on Etaples in April 1918, nine WAAC’s were killed by shelling. The British newspapers naturally reported it as an ‘outrage’, but the WAAC Chief Controller Helen Gwynne-Vaughan was quick to point out that as they were in France as replacement soldiers the enemy were ‘quite within their right’ to attempt to kill them.