| Description | Work completed by volunteer includes the following information:
Private Reginald Nicholson joined the 13th Battalion of the East Yorkshire Regiment 4th Hull Pals Battalions, known as “T’Others”. In late Dec 1915 the 13th –part of 92nd Infantry Brigade and 31st Division-went to Egypt in order to guard the Suez Canal but in Mar 1916 were sent to France via Marseilles. Reginald was in the Machine Gun Section. The 13th took part in the early stages of the Battle of the Somme (in the Battle of Albert), on the 13 Nov at Serre, the opening day of the Battle of the Ancre where the 12th and 13th East Yorkshires suffered over 800 casualties. Beverley’s local papers on 2 Dec 1916 reported Reginald as missing. He continued to serve in the regiment until 1918 when he was transferred to the Z Reserve. He was awarded the 1914-15 Star and the War and Victory Medals
Reginald was born in Staffordshire on 17 Dec 1889, his father Arthur Walter Nicholson, originlly form Hull, was a solicitor and according to Kelly’s Directory of 1913, “a translator of all European languages”; his mother Annie Maria was from Lincolnshire. Reginald was one of five children. In Beverley the family lived at Hunslet House, Grovehill Road. In 1911 Reginald worked at the Maypole Dairy on Toll Gavel as a grocer’s assistant
After the war Reginald moved to the Wakefield and Pontefract areas and married Maud Jenkins in Dec 1921. They had one child, Rita, born 1922 but she died in 1932. The 1939 census has Reginald working as a “van salesman”. He died in Pontefract.
Includes photograph, information taken from census, military records, Commonwealth War Graves, newspapers |