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John Rule died in action the 4 Aug 1916, his body was not recovered; he was posted as "missing" and reported as such in the Beverley Guardian of 7 Oct 1916. He is commemorated on the Loos Memorial in France (Panel 65), some distance from where he may have died on the Somme. He is also remembered on the Hengate War Memorial, the East Riding Memorial in Beverley Minster, on St Mary's Church Roll of Honour and on the Norwood Street Shrine. He was awarded the 1914-15 Star and, posthumously, the War and Victory Medals.
John initially served in the Army Cyclist Corps, in 1915 he was transferred to the 11th Battalion of the East Lancashire Regiment ("The Accrington Pals") and served as a Lance-Corporal. He arrived with them in Egypt in Dec 1915 to guard the Suez Canal but they were sent to France in the spring of 1916.
On 1 Jul 1916 the Accrington Pals were involved in the first actions of the Battle of the Somme. In the attack on Serre that morning the Pals were all but wiped out in half an hour, suffering 235 dead and 350 wounded from a total strength of 700 men. One of the Battalion signallers, observing from the rear, reported that, "… we were able to see our comrades move forward in an attempt to cross No Man's Land only to be mown down like meadow grass". John appears to have been a survivor but was then attached to the 12th Battalion of the Manchester Regiment. On 3 Aug they were involved in an attack on Orchard Trench near Mametz Wood on the Somme, losing 16 Officers and 600 men, one of whom was quite possibly John Rule.
John was born in 1888 the son of Samuel Rule, a gardener, born in Norfolk and Emma, from Guisborough. The family lived in Victoria Place, off Keldgate, Beverley. John became a gardener and was recorded in the 1911 census as an "under gardener to a nurseryman" at Burton Constable. His family home was variously, 156 Norwood and 18 Westwood Road, Beverley; his mother later lived at 34 Minstermoorgate. John was unmarried
Includes photograph, information taken from census, military records, Commonwealth War Graves, newspapers |