| Description | Work completed by volunteer includes the following information
Samuel Southwick was born in Beverley in 1888 the son of George and Jane Eliza Southwick, of Wilbert Lane and then 16 Eastgate, Beverley. George was a tanner’s labourer and lived to the age of 91 in Eastgate.
When war broke out in Jul 1914 Samuel was working as a warehouse assistant at the Co-operative Society in Eastgate, Beverley, he enlisted in Beverley on 7 Nov 1914, joining the Yorkshire Regiment. He spent the next 18 months with 2nd/5th Yorkshire Regiment in England coming under orders of 189th Brigade, 63rd (Northumbrian) Division until it was broken up in July 1916 and all A1 category men were posted, including Samuel, who was transferred to 1/5th Yorkshire Regiment already in France. He was transferred again, this time to the York and Lancashire Regiment and was killed in action on 7 Sep 1916 aged 28.
A piece appeared in the Beverley Guardian on 23 Sep 1916 which included a letter Sam’s mother had received from Private Jim Wright, also with the York and Lancashire Regiment and a friend. Jim tells how there was heavy shelling of their position and Samuel was hit by a piece of shell as it burst on the top of the trench. Jim goes on to say the death was instant, Samuel would not have suffered and that he was buried, by Jim and another pal, in a grave behind the firing line where they placed a small wooden cross at the head to mark the spot. Samuel’s service record gives the briefest of details “Killed in Action (Gas)”.
Of the four other Southwick brothers who served, Harry died aged 24 in 1917, but George, David, and Arthur all returned.
Includes photograph, information taken from census, military records, Commonwealth War Graves, newspapers |