BORN BRADFORD 1880. SON OF GEORGE E. & SARAH ROO. WIFE ALICE E. ROO LIVED AT 4 ELDORADO AVENUE, SCARBOROUGH STREET, HULL, HIS BROTHER PTE. ARTHUR ROO, EYR, DIED OF WOUNDS ON 30/06/1916.
Hull Pals Memorial Post. SERGEANT JAMES WILLIAM ROO MM 225198. Born in December 1881, James was the third of five children and eldest son of George and Sarah Roo, of 3 Thornton’s Buildings, Bradford. The 1911 Census finds him in Hull, lodging with one Fanny Forge at 1 Lily Grove, Regent Street and working as a Dock Labourer. He married Alice Smith in January 1913 and the couple settled down to domestic bliss at 4 Eldorado Ave, Hessle Road. When war came James enlisted in the fight for King and Country, and must have been a brave and capable soldier having risen to the rank of Sergeant and earned the Military Medal for his endeavours. He was killed in action on 15th August 1918 in the fighting around Vieux-Berquin and is buried at Outtersteene Communal Military Cemetery, Bailleul; he was 38 years old. Just one man among many thousands, a courageous and capable man, newly a husband and the son of a Blacksmith from Bradford, whose light was snuffed out on the altar of freedom on the whims of men who never even knew his name.
