| Description | Work completed by volunteer includes the following information:
Joseph was born in Beverley on 18 Nov 1891. He was one of eight children born to Arthur Taylor (1869-1939) and his wife Sarah (1872-1938) (nee Woollock) who had married in Beverley in 1889. Joseph was brought up on St Andrew St, on Holme Church Lane and by the time of WWI was living on Walkergate. Nothing is known of his education but Joseph became a hide washer at Hodgson’s local tannery in the same section where his father worked as a hide burner.
In 1909 Joseph had joined the Territorial Force as a private in the 5th East Yorkshire Cyclists and upon the outbreak of war on 4 Aug 1914 he was mobilised and the 5th cyclists spent time in the Louth area on coastal protection duties. At this time Joseph refused to sign up for overseas service and complained in letters in his army service folder of being restricted to menial duties as a result. In 1916 he agreed to transfer to the regular army and joined the 10th Battalion of the West Yorkshire Regiment as an infantry private. He arrived in France in Jul 1916 and the 10th took heavy casualties on the Somme at the Battle of Albert. The 10th later took part in the first and second battles of the Scarpe at Arras in Apr and May 1917 and in the capture of Roeux. They later took part in the Battle of Passchendaele in Belgium. They were involved in the retreats of Mar 1918 on the Somme at St Quentin and Bapaume. It was possibly there that Joseph received unspecified wounds and was repatriated to Wheatley Military Hospital at Oxford. Upon recovery he spent the rest of the war with 181st Company of the Labour Corps and received a pension for disability after the war. He received the War and Victory Medals.
On 27 Feb 1918 he was married to Sarah Safford (1894-1967) at St Mary’s Church. She was a laundress who had lived on Silvester Lane. They had one child, Eric, born in Nov 1919. The 1939 Register tells us that Joseph had become a postman whilst his wife was a shopkeeper. They lived at 7 Walkergate in Beverley. Joseph died in Sheffield in 1968.
Includes information taken from census, military records |