BORN CATFOSS, YORKS 1896. A FARM HORSEMAN. ENLISTED HULL. SON OF WILLIAM & EDITH ANNIE PAWSON, SKIPSEA.
Hull Pals Memorial Post: Born in January 1896 in Catfoss, East Yorkshire Harold was one of three children and the only son of William and Edith Annie Pawson, of Dringhoe Cottage, Skipsea. Grandson of Noah & Margaret Thompson Hook, of Thorngumbald, Hull.
A Farm Labourer by trade he travelled to Hull to enlist, signing up to fight for King and Country on 23rd June 1915 joining the 10th Battalion East Yorkshire Regiment, “The Commercials”, 1st Hull Pals. His army records described him as 5 foot, 3.5 inches tall, 126 lbs weight, 35 inch chest, good physical development.
After that Harold’s story is that of the battalion itself: training through the rest of the year, the arduous voyage from Devonport to Alexandria, Egypt before Christmas, winter protecting Suez from the Turks and then orders to leave Port Said bound for Marseilles in the spring. From there it was north to the trenches of the Western Front.
Harold was killed in action on 4th June 1916, and according to Michael Sewell’s excellent local history, “A Dear One Gone Forever, he was: “Killed by shell splinters.”
Perhaps a polite way of saying his life was ripped from him by flying shards of red hot metal.
Harold Herbert Pawson served 347 days in the army and is buried in Sucrerie Military Cemetery; he was 20 years old.
He is also remembered on the family grave, at St Mary’s Graveyard, Thorngumbald, Hull.
