| Description | Work completed by volunteer includes the following information:
John Riby Lowthorpe was born the 30 Sep 1876, the son of Shadwell and Mary Lowthorpe (nee Mitchell), of Dog and Duck Lane, Beverley. Shadwell and Mary had five children between them from previous marriages and John Riby was their first child together.
John, a bricklayer at the time, married Mary Ann Brown of Grayburn Lane, the daughter of the late George Brown, a gardener on the 3 Apr 1899. Their daughter Mary Helen was born 1904. In 1906 John and Mary left England for Canada, where John carried on his trade as a bricklayer in Galt, Ontario. In 1908 daughter Margarite was born.
John enlisted in the 1st Battalion Canadian Infantry on 11 Jan 1915. At the time he was 5ft 4 and 1/4 inches tall, had grey hair and eyes, and a tattoo on his left arm, he was 39 years of age and had already served three years in the 4th Battalion East Yorkshire Regiment.
On 12 Jan 1916, almost a year to the day after enlisting, he was in the Canadian General Hospital in Etaples, France, having received a gunshot wound which fractured his left arm. He was subsequently sent to England and stayed in Nottingham and Epsom before going back to the front on 18 December 1916. He was discharged from the Army in London on 24 Apr 1919.
After the war he returned to Canada. He died in 1951 and is buried in Mountainview Cemetery, Cambridge, Ontario.
Includes photograph, information taken from census, military records, Commonwealth War Graves, newspapers |