| Description | Work completed by volunteer includes the following information:
John Gibbon was born in the village of Lowthorpe, near Driffield, on 13 Oct 1894. He was baptised at the local parish church on 29 Oct 1894. He was the oldest child of ten born to Aaron Gibbon and Annie Gibbon (nee Hodgson). Shortly after John’s birth the family moved to Beverley, his father no longer a farm labourer but a labourer at a local manure works. The family lived at Tigar’s Cottages, Grovehill Road. The last of John’s siblings, Arthur, was born in 1915. John seems to have become a farm worker himself and was working in the Lowthorpe area prior to joining the army.
John enlisted on 7 Aug 1914, three days after Britain’s declaration of war on Germany. He joined the Royal Field Artillery as a driver but later served as a shoeing smith and farrier, clearly linked to his farming background. He arrived in Egypt on 31 Mar 1915. After the end of the war John signed on with the regular army for a further 4 years. By this time he was in India and indeed may have spent the entire war there. His re-enrollment papers indicate that he served on the North West Frontier and the Khyber Pass in 1919-1920 during the 3rd Anglo-Afghan War. For that he was awarded the Indian General Service Medal (Afghanistan Campaign) as well as the 1914-15 Star and the War and Victory Medals. He left the army in 1924 but had been in the UK since 1922.
On 12 Jun 1922 John Gertrude Wallace married at St Nicholas’ Church, Beverley. Gertrude was born in 1896 in Beverley. They initially lived at 2 Brougham Row, Beckside but later lived on Thompson Avenue. They had six children. John worked as a heavy labourer, a “navvy” according to the 1939 Register. John died in Hull, aged 82, in 1977.
Includes photograph, information taken from census, military records, Commonwealth War Graves, newspapers |