BORN HULL 1872. SON OF CARL AND HARRIET ROJAHN, FROM NORWAY. HIS REAL NAME WAS ROJAHN, BUT HE SERVED AS BARBER. (THIEPVAL RECORDS). A BOER WAR VETERAN AND HULL DOCKER. HE ENLISTED IN THE HULL PALS. ACTED AS A SNIPER. HE WAS KILLED AT SERRE, ON 13/11/1916, AGED 44. HE LEFT WIDOW MINNIE & FOUR CHILDREN AT 3 ETHEL GROVE AND 12 LILLIAN TERRACE, BARNSLEY STREET, HULL. HIS DEATH WAS REPORTED IN HDM HDM 16/11/1917. & 23/11/17.
Hull Pals Memorial Post. PRIVATE JOHN ALBERT BARBER 12/382. Born John Albert Rojahn on 23rd June 1872 the only child of Carl and Harriet Rojahn. A Dock Labourer by trade he lived with his common law wife Minnie at 12 Lillians Terrace, Barnsley Street, Hull. The couple had seven children- John, Frederick, William, Minnie & George (both died in 1912), Thomas and Charlotte. Enlisting at City Hall in September 1914, John joined the 12th Battalion East Yorkshire Regiment, 3rd Hull Pals; and no doubt with his children in mind and faced with an uncertain future, he married Minnie in April 1915. She was Minnie Barber, and he appears to have adopted her maiden name to join up, possibly to avoid the more Germanic-sounding ‘Rojahn’ singling him out for ‘special attention’. John was killed in action on the Somme on 13th November 1916 and his body was never recovered; his name is commemorated on the Thiepval Memorial. He was 44 years old.
