BORN LINCOLN, 1895. SON OF TOM MONDAY (1868-1917) & HARRIET MONDAY (1869-1960), OF 11, RUSSELL TERRACE, BEAN STREET, HULL (WAR PENSION ADDRESS). SON OF A SHIP WRIGHT. ONE OF EIGHT CHILDREN, LIVING AT 11 RUSSELL TERRACE, BEAN STREET, HULL. HE JOINED THE HULL COMMERCIALS PALS BATTALION. SERVING WITH THE 10TH EAST YORKSHIRE BATTALION. HE WAS KILLED IN ACTION. HIS FATHER TOM SERVED AT SAME ADDRESS. (1918 MILITARY VOTERS). HIS BROTHER, ARTHUR MONDAY, WAS KILLED WITH THE ROYAL MARINES, AT GALLIPOLI, ON 24/06/1915, AGED 21. HE IS ALSO RECORDED ON THE BEAN STREET ROLL OF HONOUR (Hull Daily Mail 11 October 1916) AND ON THE ST MATTHEWS CHURCH WW1 MEMORIAL, BOULEVARD, HULL
JOHN ‘S DEATH WAS REPORTED IN THE HULL DAILY MAIL ON THE 25TH JUNE 1917 WITH HIS PHOTOGRAPH. *
Hull Pals Memorial Post: Born in Lincoln in 1895, John was the fourth of eight children to Tom and Harriett Monday of 11 Russell Terrace, Bean Street, Hull. A Shop Assistant by trade he enlisted on 2nd September 1914 for the newly-formed 10th Battalion East Yorkshire Regiment, “The Commercials”, 1st Hull Pals.
Training at barracks in Hornsea, Beverley and Ripon throughout much of 1915, the Pals left Devonport for Alexandria, Egypt on 8th December 1915 and spent the winter defending the Suez Canal from potential attack by the Turks. They shipped for France in late February 1916 where they soon acquired the nickname “The Lucky 10th” for their ability to take a pounding without amassing any casualties. Their luck ran out on 4th June 1916. The battalion had its stay in the trenches at Beaumont Hamel extended by 24 hours to cover a raid by 94th Brigade who were practising for the Somme attack. When a British barrage began at midnight, the Germans paid it back in kind and with pinpoint accuracy. They completely demolished the front line trench with artillery fire which lasted from 12.30am to 1.40am. The Pals lost close to 30 men in that 70 minutes of hell, among them John Henry Monday, a shop assistant from Hull. It was more woe for his parents who had lost his elder brother Albert, killed in action on 24th June 1915 serving with the Royal Navy; and Harriet Monday’s misery was complete when the boy’s father Tom died the following year.
John is buried in Sucrerie Miltary Cemetery; he was 20 years old.
The 10th EYR Battalion History records: “The front line trenches were blown in almost beyond recognition, scarcely a fire-bay remained intact. As expected casualties came readily, but the men stood up heroically to a rain of shells to which they could not reply”. When the shelling subsided there came the horrific job of removing the corpses of friends. The included John Henry Monday, aged 20, Albert Blakemore, aged 19 and Arthur Ernest West, aged 21, who all lived a few yards from each other in Bean Street, back home. It is inconceivable that these three men did not know each other. Perhaps they were huddled on the same fire-step. We’ll never know. They died together on the 4th June 1916 and are remembered together on St Matthew’s Church ww1 Memorial, Boulevard, Hull.
