BORN MARKET WEIGHTON, 1888. SON OF HUGH & ANN, OF HIGH STREET, MARKET WEIGHTON, HULL. WORKED ON THE MARKET WEIGHTON POSTAL STAFF. COMMEMORATED ON THE MARKET WEIGHTON MEMORIAL.
Hull Pals Memorial Post. PRIVATE HUGH LOFTUS 21921. Born 1888, the youngest of eight children to Hugh and Annie Loftus of Market Weighton, East Yorkshire. Hugh Snr was Innkeeper at the Nags Head in the town and the family resided there as tenants. Hugh Jnr worked as a Postman prior to enlistment on 11th December 1915. He was called up the following February and joined the Pals in France. He will most certainly have joined in time for the battle for Oppy Wood during the Arras campaign in 1917 and seen many of those he had come to know as friends fall. He will have felt the bitter chill of winter creep into his bones as he huddled in the frozen corners of trenches, feet immersed in the inescapable sludge, enduring more misery than any man should have to bear. Hugh Loftus Jnr. was killed in action on 29th March 1918 somewhere to the west of the remains of a French village called Ervillers. His body was never recovered and his name is commemorated on Bays 4-5 of the Arras Memorial. He was 29 years old.
