| Description | Work completed by volunteer includes the following information:
Private Joseph Fox, born in Beverley but serving with the CEF (Canadian Expeditionary Force) died of wounds in France on 17 Apr 1918. At some point between 1911 and 1914 he emigrated to Canada. He was a farmer in the vicinity of Uxbridge, Ontario, near the city of Toronto and enlisted there on 8 Nov 1915. He initially joined the 116th Overseas Battalion of the CEF but once he arrived in Europe on 31 Jul 1916 he was transferred to the 19th Battalion of the Canadian Infantry, with whom he served until his death. The 19th were involved in actions on the Somme in 1916 and most famously the capture of Vimy Ridge in Apr 1917 and the capture of Passchendaele village in Belgium in Dec 1917.
On 17 Apr 1918 they were attempting to halt a major German advance across the Somme region when Joseph was shot in the head and died of his injuries at No.3 Canadian Stationary Hospital at Douellens. He is buried in Douellens Cemetery Extension No.1. Until that point, according to his medical records, he had not been wounded, rather he was twice hospitalised in the UK with severe laryngitis and bronchitis.
Joseph was born in Beverley the 26 Jan 1891 and baptised at Beverley Minster the 27 Mar 1893. His mother was Jane Hannah Tempest from Morley, Leeds, whose father was a publican. She married William Fox, a tanner’s labourer, of Beverley in 1890, and they lived in Eastgate and then Sparkmill Terrace, off Flemingate. They had two children Joseph and Sarah, born 1895, the same year that William died. Jane remarried on 14 Sep 1898 at Beverley Minster, her new husband being David Porton Smales a shipyard and later tanner’s labourer from the town. They had two children: Lily born 1899 and George born 1906. The family home was now in Ridings Fields. Joseph attended Beckside Primary School and possibly St Mary’s Boys before becoming a farm worker. In the 1911 census he is recorded working as a wagoner on a farm at Halsham near Withernsea. He was unmarried.
Joseph is remembered on the Hengate Memorial and on the East Riding Memorial in Beverley Minster. He is also listed in the Canadian National Book of Remembrance in the Chamber of the Peace Tower in Ottawa, Canada. Mrs Smales received the Memorial Cross given to mothers of Canadian men killed in the War.
Includes photograph, information taken from census, military records, Commonwealth War Graves, newspapers |