BORN HULL 1892. HULL PAL. DIED OF WOUNDS. SON OF SARAH & THOMAS JARVIS, ‘THE GABLES’ DUNNINGTON, YORK. AWARDED MILITARY MEDAL & BAR.
Hull Pals Memorial Post. L/CPL LEONARD JARVIS MM and Bar 10/1191. A tough man to pin down owing to mixed messages in his war records. I believe our man went by his middle name, and though the CWGC say he’s from Hull, I believe he is John Leonard Jarvis one of three children to Thomas and Sarah Jarvis of The Gables, Dunnington, York. Born in 1892 he was one of the Originals enlisting at Hull City Hall originally joining the 10th Battalion East Yorkshire Regiment, but later transferring to the 11th. His records are missing, no doubt destroyed in The Blitz like so many others, but it is reasonable to assume that, spells out of the line wounded aside, Leonard served in Egypt then on the Somme, at Oppy Wood and Arras, and helped bring to a halt the German Spring Offensive at Armentieres, during the course of which he was awarded the Military Medal for conspicuous bravery in the face of danger. He was fatally wounded and withdrawn to the hospital centre at St. Omer where he died on 13th July 1918. So close to the end of the war, and yet so far away. Leonard is buried in Longuenesse Military Cemetery; he was 26 years old.
