| Description | Work completed by volunteer includes the following information:
Herbert Blake was born the 4 Aug 1896 and baptised in Beverley Minster the 22 Aug 1896, the son of William Thomas and Alice Blake (nee Spivey). William was born in Wilton, Wiltshire but by the 1880s had moved to Beverley. In 1883 he married Alice Spivey.
Herbert enlisted in the 5th (Reserves) Battalion Yorkshire Regiment on 6 Nov 1914, in Oct 1917, when he was transferred to the 2/4th Battalion of the East Lancashire Regiment, he was posted abroad. At the end of Nov 1917, just after the end of the second Battle of Passchendaele, he was invalided home for surgery on a hernia. Herbert was moved from a field hospital to Canterbury Military Hospital and then to York Military Hospital and, by early Mar 1918, was declared fit again for overseas service. On returning to the Front he was transferred on 21 Mar 1918 to the 2nd Battalion Suffolk Regiment, as the first Battle of the Somme (1918) was about to start. On 2 Aug 1918, Herbert was transferred to the 175 Company of the Labour Corp, the reason given being "benefit of service". Herbert left the Army on 2 Mar 1919 and was awarded the British War and Victory medals for his service and is remembered on the Beckside and Flemingate Roll of Honour.
Herbert married Alice Maud Gibbon of Sylvester Lane on 2 Oct 1922. Between 1922 and 1937 they had seven children. The family lived on Sylvester Lane but by 1927 had moved to 3 Glossop Cottages, Cherry Tree Lane, they eventually moved to 42 Greenwood Avenue. Alice died on 12 Aug 1971, and Herbert died on 22 Apr 1979. They are buried together in Queensgate Cemetery, Beverley.
Includes information taken from census, military records, Commonwealth War Graves, newspapers |