| Description | Work completed by volunteer includes the following information
Harry was born in Beverley on 22 Jan 1883 and baptised at St Mary's Church on 20 May of that year. He was one of five children born to John Robert Haddlesey, a locally born French polisher and his wife, Mary Ann (nee Care). She was born locally in 1860. They married in 1871. Harry was brought up at various addresses on Pasture Terrace in Beverley and probably attended St Mary's Boy's School like his younger brother Charlie. Initially Harry went into domestic service: in 1901 he worked as a footman at Little Tranby on the Hurn in Beverley, home of shipowner Edward Wilson. He later became a groom but was mentioned in Kelly's Directory of 1913 as being an "assistant superintendant" but it is not known where.
Given some of Harry's equine connections it was perhaps not surprising that in the war he served in the East Riding Imperial Yeomanry 1st Battalion as a private in this cavalry force. This had been part of the Territorial Force and Charlie's service number-1544- indicates that he too may have been with them before 1914. The 1st Battalion of the Yeomanry were sent to Egypt in October 1915. Egypt, and specifically the Suez Canal, were under threat from the Ottoman Turks in Palestine and Gaza; Charlie would have been involved in desert patrols and in 1916-17 actions in the region to force the Turkish army northwards away from the Canal. Whether Charlie took part in these actions is not known since his papers are missing. The defeat of the Turks brought big changes to the Yeomanry and Charlie, like many other men from Beverley, returned to Europe where they were converted into infantry soldiers, specifically serving various battalions of the Machine Gun Corps. He would played an important role in the allied advances on German lines after August 1918. He was awarded the War and Victory medals. He left the military in Mar 1919.
Harry spent the rest of his life in Hull. He is recorded in 1922 as being a "firelighter manufacturer" and by 1939 was a "master grocer". In early 1922, at Sculcoates Registry Office, he married Evelyn Whitehurst, born in Hull in 1899, daughter of a lamplighter. They had seven children, the first, Henry, born in early 1923. Just before WW2 they were living on Calvert Lane in Hull. Harry died, aged 89, in the spring of 1972. Evelyn had died in 1971.
Includes information taken from census, military records, Commonwealth War Graves, newspapers |