He hath done what he could and his end was peace
Son of Robert Christopher and Mary Ellen Harkness, of Blackhill, Co. Durham.
Paul Heatherington has submitted the following:-
William Norman, known as Norman, was born in July 1899 and was baptised on the 30th August in the Primitive Methodist Chapel, Shotley Bridge. His family lived at 25 George Street, Blackhill. His father was Robert Christopher Harkness, a local man, who worked as a blast furnace man. His mother was Mary Eleanor (née Coxon) from Blackhill. William was the first child in his family, ahead of Raymond and Mary.
Norman enlisted in Consett on the 23rd June 1917, just before his eighteenth birthday. At that time, he was 5’ 4’’ tall, with a chest measurement of 32½ inches. He weighed less than eight stone. He had blue eyes and brown hair and was working as a bricklayer’s apprentice at Consett Iron Works.
Norman was only eighteen years old when he was wounded and gassed in France, on the 1st June 1918, and died of his injuries.
William Norman Harkness is remembered at Blackhill on B145.12 and at Shotley Bridge on S27.03
He is also remembered in The DLI Book of Remembrance page 138 as N. Harkness
