| Description | Work completed by volunteer includes the following information:
Corporal Benjamin Nicholson and his son, Driver Harry Nicholson had the distinction of serving in the same regiment during the war, the Army Supply Corps (Remounts)-and according to the Beverley Guardian 8 Dec 1917 served together in France at the same depot for nearly three years.
Benjamin was born in Beverley in 1865. He is recorded in the 1881 census as a stableman at Newmarket, Suffolk. He returned to Beverley and in the 1891 census and in a local trade directory in 1893 was a fish merchant and game supplier at 4 Butcher Row, Beverley. He married Mary Elizabeth Thompson, the daughter of the landlord of the Black Swan, Highgate on the 21 Sep 1890 at Beverley Minster. They had two children,Harry born 1893 and Frank born 1897.
On 8 Oct 1914 Benjamin joined the army at Hull and was immediately sent to Woolwich in London and given the rank of Corporal. He left for France in the BEF on 24 Oct 1914. He joined the Army Supply Corps Remounts Service and was given preferential treatment in the light of his equine past. The Remounts service was responsible for the provisioning and training of horses and mules to all other army units. There were four depots in the UK but there were also depots in France. Benjamin joined the No.1 Base Remount Depot that had originally been in Ireland and York, and went to France in Sep 1914. In Oct 1914 it moved to Rouen and was there for the rest of the war. Benjamin gained a 1914 Star and the War and Victory Medals. He received a serious injury to his knee in 1918, kicked by an animal and was hospitalised in Bath. He was discharged from the army on 24 Jan 1919 and given a Silver Badge, unfit for further military Service. The Beverley Guardian 8 Dec 1917 also noted that his wife served in the WAAC Corps attached to the Royal Flying Corps (later in 1918 the RAF) at Cramlington, Northumberland.
Benjamins died in 1929, aged 63, at Bridlington. His wife died in 1952.
Includes photograph, information taken from census, military records, Commonwealth War Graves, newspapers |