BORN LICHFIELD, STAFFS 1889. SON OF ROBERT PRICE JONES & MARIA LOUISE SHEPHERD, HOWDEN. WAS A LOCAL HULL TEACHER. ORIGINAL HULL PAL. MARRIED JANE MIRIAM KNIGHTON ON 22/7/1915 WHO WAS A TEACHER FROM BARNSLEY. HULL ADDRESS UNTRACED. HIS NAME IS RECORDED ON THE HESSLE ROLL OF HONOUR, ALL SAINTS PARISH CHURCH.
Hull Pals Memorials writes. Born in 1889 in Lichfield, Staffordshire but living and working as a teacher in Hull at time of enlistment. He queued outside City Hall to volunteer for King and Country joining the 10th Battalion East Yorkshire Regiment, ‘The Commercials’, 1st Hull Pals.
Reginald followed the familiar path of training throughout the following year and leaving Devonport for Alexandria, Egypt at the start of December 1915. First though he took leave and married Jane Miriam Knighton in Greengates on 22nd July. Their time together was to be shortlived.
On 1st July 1916, the first day of the Battle of the Somme, the 10th were meant to be in Reserve. On that day though ‘Reserve’ meant first stepping out into pre-dawn No Man’s Land where they were put to work cutting ‘lanes’ through their own barbed wire to allow the attacking troops a path through. After that they pulled back to let those going ‘Over The Top’ to move forward. D Company remained in the front line, both to hold it in the event of a counter attack, and to help gather any wounded. The men were packed into trenches waiting to be called upon if needed, and stood all day beneath a heavy counter bombardment.
Reginald was blown to pieces whilst stood in Palestine Street trench. His name is commemorated on the Thiepval Memorial as one of the 73,357 men who lost their lives in that sector whose body was never recovered; he was 27 years old.
