| Description | Work completed by volunteer includes the following information:
2nd Lieutenant Harry Westerman, attached to the 21st Battalion of the King's Royal Rifle Corps was killed in action near Ypres, Belgium, on 11 Aug 1918 at the age of 40. He was buried in La Clytte Military Cemetery, Belgium. Harry is remembered on the Hengate War Memorial, and on the East Riding Memorial in Beverley Minster.
The London Gazette of 17 May 1917 announced the promotion of Cadet H Westerman to the rank of Lieutenant in Apr 1917. Harry had been an acting Colour Sergeant in the West Yorkshire Regiment up to this point and serving in France. Harry had been a career soldier: in a tribute in the Beverley Guardian in Aug 1918, it notes that he had served 20 years before the outbreak of war in India in the "East Yorks and Lancasters". Whilst in India Harry married Mary Beatrix Higgins on 5 Nov 1902 at the Roman Catholic Cathedral in Madras. Their first son, Arthur William died shortly after birth; their second son, Ernest Jeffry was born in 1907. Harry's army medal card from 1920 notes that his widow's then address was 8 Brook Stree, Selby. She remarried in that year.
Harry was born in Beverley the 14 Jan 1878, the son of Arthur Westerman, rate/tax collector and later a hairdresser, and Elizabeth (nee Carr) of Kilham. He attended St Mary's Boys School, the family lived at 39 Wednesday Market, and later at 16 Eastgate. In 1911 they were living at 69 Walkergate and his mother was described as a boarding house keeper.
Includes photograph, information taken from census, military records, Commonwealth War Graves, newspapers |