| Description | Work completed by volunteer includes the following information:
Richard English served in the army, he is commemorated on the Beckside and Flemingate Street Shrine which states he served with the East Yorkshire Regiment. The Beverley Guardian noted that “Lance Corporal Richard E English” had been wounded but didn’t specify his regiment. There are soldiers in the Army Supply Corps, the Machine Gun Corps, and the Durham Light Infantry/Rifle Brigade who match his name and it is possible that one of them is Richard. The member of the ASC was an acting corporal. Richard was repatriated to the UK from the Western Front for what must have been a serious unspecified injury and spent time at Queen Mary’s Military Hospital at Whalley in Lancashire. He was awarded the War and Victory medals.
Richard was born in Beverley 7 Dec 1897 and baptised at St Mary’s Church on 2 Jan 1898, his family living in nearby Wood Lane. His father was tanner’s labourer, Richard Charles English of Beverley and his mother Ada Burks Aylett was from Etton. Richard was the oldest of seven children. They lived at Beckside North, now Blucher Lane. His first job after leaving school was as a grocer’s errand boy but the 1911 census says that he was “unemployed”. Richard married Amy Tattersall, born Beverley 1896, on 16 Aug 1921 at St Mary’s Church. They had three children: John, born Aug 1922, Peter born 1923 and Gordon born 1930. They later lived at 9a Eastgate in Beverley. Amy was the daughter of Wyrell Tattersall, a night watchman at the local tannery, of St Andrew Street. Richard’s entry in the register at his wedding states that he was a “police constable” but there is no one of that name who served with the East Riding or Hull Constabularies; it is possible that he served with the LNER railway police. The 1939 Register notes that Richard had become a “police pensioner” but the circumstances of this are unknown.
Richard died 24 Apr 1954 and Amy died in 1974. Richard’s brother, Robert, born in 1901 served in the Royal Navy between 1925 and 1942, including time on battleships, HMS Benbow and Iron Duke. He later became a hospital boilerman in Bridlington. Richard’s brother, John, born in1899 serving in the Manchester Regiment, was killed in action in France on 23 Oct 1918.
Includes photograph, information taken from census, military records, Commonwealth War Graves, newspapers |