| Description | Work completed by volunteer includes the following information:
Joseph James Barrett was born in Gillingham, Kent on 4 Nov 1889 and baptised at the Wesleyan Methodist Chapel at Brompton, Kent on 23 Jul 1890. He was one of six children born to Thomas and Sarah Barrett. Joseph worked as a road labourer before joining the army on 30 Apr 1909. He became a private in the 2nd Battalion of the East Yorkshire Regiment headquartered at Victoria Barracks in Beverley. The 2nd Battalion served in India, the 1911 census shows that Joseph was stationed at Kamptee in western India. They remained there until Dec 1914 when they returned to the UK. On 1 Jan 1915 they joined the BEF in France, Joseph arrived on 15 Jan and in March he received “gunshot wounds to the hand and head.”
In late Oct 1915 the 2nd were redeployed and sent to the Salonika Front in the Balkans where they remained until 1918. Joseph opted to join the Royal Flying Corps, commencing service with them as an “air mechanic” (ground crew) on 11 Feb 1916. He was soon promoted to corporal and then to sergeant on 1 Jan 1917. In mid-1916 he was serving in Norfolk. He was discharged in Jan 1919 as unfit for further service, awarded the Silver Badge and given a pension for 26 weeks. He also received the 1915 Star and the War and Victory medals.
Joseph married Edith Eveline Fortes of Beverley on 15 Aug 1916 at Beverley Minster. Their first child, Joseph James was born in 1917, their second child, Thomas, was born in late 1918 in the London area. The family returned to Beverley and had three further children Frederick in 1921, Thelma in 1923 and Raymond in 1924. The 1939 Register shows Joseph was working as a general labourer and that the family living at 12 Hodgson Avenue. Edith died in early 1944, Joseph in early 1945. Edith’s father, Harry Fortes, also from Beverley, had served in the Royal Navy and the TA before the war. He later served in the East Riding Royal Garrison Artillery from 1914-18 before being discharged with a foot injury gaining a Silver Badge.
Includes photograph, information taken from census, military records, Commonwealth War Graves, newspapers |