| Description | Work completed by volunteer includes the following information:
John Ranson was born in Beverley the 30 Jul 1895 and baptised the Weslyan Church on 16 Sep 1895, the son of Charles Henry Ranson and Sarah Jane (nee Dixon), who married in Beverley in 1894. John attended St Nicholas’ School, Beverley. The family lived with his mother’s father at 1 St Nicholas’ Road until moving to 3 Priory Road. John was an apprentice printer at Messrs Wright and Hoggard of Swinemoor Lane. John was unmarried.
John was private in the 1st/5th Battalion of the Yorkshire Regiment and may have been a member of the TA. He later served with the 1st /4th and 1st /5th Battalions of the York and Lancaster Regiment but the dates of his transfer, and his arrival on the Western Front, are not known. By 1918 John was with the 18th Battalion of the Durham Light Infantry shortly before his death. John was killed in action in northern France in the vicinity of Hazebrouck in the early morning of 27 Jun 1918. A letter from Lt Col W Rows to his father noted that,
“…he took part in the successful attack that night and had done well with his Lewis-gun, but while out with his party was killed almost instantaneously by a bullet. He suffered no pain…..He had not been long with the battalion but had done his duty faithfully and gallantly”.
John is buried at the Cinq Rues British Cemetery, Hazebrouck. He is commemorated on the Hengate Memorial in Beverley and on the Grovehill Road Street Shrine but not on the East Riding Memorial in Beverley Minster. He is also commemorated with eleven other members of his church in a memorial window at the Toll Gavel Wesleyan Church.
Includes information taken from census, military records, Commonwealth War Graves, newspapers |