| Description | Work completed by volunteer includes the following information:
Private Jim Lee served in the 11th Battalion of the East Yorkshire Regiment, otherwise known as the 2nd Hull Pals but commonly referred to as the Hull Tradesmen’s Battalion. He enlisted in late 1914 and the 11th, along with the other three Hull Pals Battalions was sent to Egypt in Dec 1915 for guard duties along the Suez Canal. They returned and went to France in Mar 1916 and saw service on the Somme in 1916 and at Arras in 1917. The actions on the Serre in late November 1916 and at Oppy Wood in May 1917. The 11th returned to action in the spring of 1918. They were then switched to Belgium on the Lys Salient in the summer of 1918. On 8 Sep 1918 Jim was taken prisoner at Armentieres and incarcerated in the infamous Fort MacDonald at Lille, nicknamed “the Black Hole of Lille” in reference to its poor conditions. Lille was liberated on 17 Oct 1918 and he was moved elsewhere. He was finally released after the Armistice of 11 Nov 1918 and returned home in Dec 1918. He was awarded the 1914-15 Star and the War and Victory medals.
Jim was born in Beverley on 18 Dec 1894. He was an only child, his mother Ellen Lee was from Beverley, his father, John William Lee was from Hull. They married in 1893. John was a provision dealer or grocer who had a business at 6 Butcher Row, Beverley; the family lived on the premises. Ellen later lived at 184 Norwood. In 1911 Jim was working as a servant and errand boy for Roy Appleton of North Bar House, North Bar Within. Appleton was a well known local doctor and surgeon and also an amateur horticulturalist of some renown. Jim was unmarried at the time of enlistment.
After the war Jim lived for a while in Beverley but later electoral registers and the 1939 Register do not show any one of his name living locally. There is an entry in the index to deaths for a James Lee who died in Holderness in late 1959 which could possibly be Jim..
Includes photograph, information taken from census, military records, Commonwealth War Graves, newspapers |