| Description | Work completed by volunteer includes the following information:
Harold was born in Beverley the 18 Sep 1891 and baptised at Beverley, St Mary's the 29 Nov 1891. He was one of two children born to labourer, Arthur Bowser Gouldwell, and his wife Amelia, who married in 1891. Amelia died in 1901 and Arthur married Hannah Elizabeth Tate in 1907. They had one child, Gervase, in 1908. Arthur died in 1911. Harold was brought up on Norwood, Silvester Lane and Pasture Terrace and was recorded in 1911 as a general carrier but had been unemployed before this time.
In 1908 Harold joined the 5th Battalion of the Yorkshire Regiment, a Territorial unit that drew many men from the Beverley area; hence their nickname, the "Beverley Terriers". He attended the annual camps and was thought highly of, described as "honest, sober and trustworthy". Once war began he opted to serve abroad for a year and arrived in France on 18 Apr 1915. The 5th were then thrust into battle at St Julien, near Ypres. Harold received treatment for a septic leg wound in early July 1915 but was more seriously wounded in action in Belgium on 4 Apr 1916; with bad gunshot wounds to his back and arm he was hospitalised in the UK. He left the army in 1916 at the end of his contract to serve abroad as a territorial. He was awarded the 1914-15 Star and the War and Victory Medals.
Harold became a wagon repairer at the Darlington Railway Works. In late 1917 he married Cora A Wigham in Darlington. They had one child, Sylvia in 1922. Cora died in 1934 and Harold married Margaret J Evans in 1935. He spent the rest of his life on the railway and in Darlington, where he died in 1967.
Includes information taken from census, military records, newspapers |