BORN HULL 1878. WIDOW JANE ANN (BEEDLE) & SON. JAMES HENRY & ANNIE ABOVE 1901. HULL PAL. DIED OF WOUNDS. HIS DEATH WAS REPORTED IN THE HULL DAILY MAIL ON THE 13TH DECEMBER 1916, WITH HIS PHOTOGRAPH. *
Hull Pals Memorial Post. CORPORAL JAMES HENRY KAY 11/690. Born in 1878, James was the youngest of five children and only son of James Kay Snr. There is no record of his mother, so it appears she died when he was still a baby and he was probably raised by his four elder sisters. A General Labourer by trade, the 1911 Census has him lodging at 15 Selby Street West in Hull. James enlisted at City Hall in the early days of September 1914 joining the then fledgling 11th Battalion East Yorkshire Regiment, ‘The Tradesmen’, 2nd Hull Pals. He was killed in action at Vauchelles on the Somme. The Pals were involved in one of the last actions of that terrible campaign as it ground to its final stuttering halt in the winter mud. They attacked on 13th November 1916 with the objective of reducing the German salient between the Albert-Bapaume road and Serre. It puts the whole campaign into perspective when you reflect that Serre had been the objective on 1st July, and that four-and-a-half months and 420,000 British lives later, they were still within spitting distance of what remained of the town. The French lost 200,000 and the Germans 500,000…..well over a million men for a few hundred yards of ground. It is impossible to imagine, utterly impossible. James is buried at Euston Road Cemetery; he was 38 years old.
