| Description | Work completed by volunteer includes the following information:
Private Jack Cross was killed in action in Belgium on 11 Apr 1918. He was 19 and had left Britain for France less than two weeks before. He was born in Walkington in Apr 1899 to Robert and Emily Cross. Jack was baptised at All Saints Church, Walkington 14 May 1899. Robert Edward Cross was born in Middleton and had been a farm labourer but by the time of the war was working as a general labourer at the East Riding Asylum at Broadgate in Walkington. His wife, Emily (nee Staveley) was from a farming family in Lund and they married in 1895. They had five children and lived in East End, Walkington. He was employed as a horseman. Jacks brothers, Thomas born 1902 and Walter born 1897, were farm workers in the Beverley area. Jack was unmarried.
Jack enlisted at Beverley 21 May 1917 and was originally in the 3rd Battalion, West Riding Regiment but was transferred to the 2nd Battalion of the York and Lancaster Regiment on 6 Apr 1918 after having arrived in France 31 Mar1918. He trained at Rugeley Camp, Cannock Chase, Staffordshire. Jack was killed in the fighting in Lys in Belgium. He was awarded the War and Victory medals.
Jack is buried in the Huts Cemetery, Dickebusch, West Flanders, Belgium. He is remembered on the War Memorial in Walkington and on the East Riding Memorial in Beverley Minster. His name also appears on a plaque originally in the Walkington Primitive Methodist Chapel and now in the Jubilee Chapel in the village
Information taken from census, military records, Commonwealth War Graves, newspapers |