Hull Pals Memorial Post. PRIVATE JOHN WALSH 12/1267. Born Hull in 1889, John had an unmarried wife, Ethel May Boileau, and a son, Jack Walsh Boileau, who lived at 75 Alicia Street in Hull. A Labourer by trade, John appears to have been a hard man to nail down and was certainly not your classic follower of orders. Following his enlistment at City Hall on 23rd December 1914 was a string of Disciplinary charges for a number of refusals and disappearances. His punishments included at first a loss of pay, then an 8 month prison sentence (though he was released after one), but it all climaxed just prior to his leaving for France when he was sentenced to 10 days Field Punishment No.2 for “Absence- being drunk and causing a disturbance in Hull”. All in all it may well have very quietly come as something of a relief to his officers when John was killed in action on 22nd July 1916 during the Somme campaign. John Walsh is buried at Rue-du-Bacquerot No.1 Military Cemetery; he was 26 years old.
Ethel May Boileau did not fare too well after his death. She was sent to prison the following year 1917 for neglecting her children, and leaving them in a ” dirty, verminous condition” with no food in the house, whilst she worked in a bag warehouse on High St. She married in 1918. Her address was 1 Daniel’s Place, Paradise Row, Bright Street, Hull (War Pension Records).
HIS NAME IS LISTED ON THE BRITISH GAS LIGHT AND COKE COMPANY WW1 MEMORIAL, WHICH IS KEPT AT THE FAKENHAM GAS MUSEUM, NORFOLK.
