Private ALBERT HIGGINSON, 19431. Born at Hull, in October 1898, Albert was the youngest of five children to Henry Higginson (1869-1933) and Mary Anne Noble (1870-1911), of 17 Spyvee Street, Hull. He enlisted on 7th June 1915 when still 16, but seems to have been a man of the world already. He was hospitalised in Alexandria, Egypt over Christmas 1915 with Venereal Disease and his case appears to have been a determined one for he didn’t join up with the battalion in France until the July of 1916. He survived the Somme but received a shrapnel wound to his right ear in March 1917 and shipped back home to recover. He spent the next six months recuperating and training but went AWOL for three weeks whilst based at Withernsea, the army believed this was to “avoid embarkation”- he’d obviously received his orders and did not have it in mind to return to the trenches. He served a prison sentence, but once again deserted, this time from Pocklington on 19th January 1918. He returned on 1st April 1918. Somehow he’d managed to evade capture long enough to get married to Nancy Galloway. He was sentenced to 28 days but served only 14 before being sent into the line. He was killed in action on 25th April. Listed as missing, his new wife wrote to the army:
Sirs,
I am writing you to ask you if you can tell me anything about my husband Pte A. Higginson, 19431, of the 11th Battalion East Yorkshire Regiment, as it is three weeks since I last heard from him and I haven’t had a letter from a friend to say he is missing. Will you please be so kind as to find him for me and please let me know as soon as possible.
She had good reason to be worried- she was pregnant. Nancy Higginson gave birth to Albert Jnr on 1st December 1918. His father had died little more than a boy himself at just 19.
His war Pension went to his widow and son at 46 Cleveland Street, Hull. Albert Higginson is recorded on the St Mark Street Memorial, Hull, with his brother, Private, Henry Higginson, 12/64, 11th East Yorkshire Regiment, who died of wounds, on 28/06/1918, aged 26.
