John Taylor and Ann Norman have submitted the following:
John William Musgrove was born in West Cornforth in 1892 the son of William and Jane Musgrove. The 1901 census shows John living with his mother in Cornforth Lane, Sedgefield. She was a widow as William had died in 1894. Sadly she also died the following year. John's sister Esther, who was six years older, had left home. She married Henry Calvert in 1909 in Stockton and in 1911 John was living with Esther and her husband in Croft, North Yorkshire. John was a farm labourer horseman. Esther died on 22nd November 1915.
John served as a Private with 1st/5th Battalion, King’s Own Royal Lancashire Regiment, regimental number 28058. When he enlisted John's address is given first as Springwell Farm Cottages where, presumably, he was again a farmworker, but it is crossed out and 23 Eighton Terrace written instead. He died of his wounds on the Western Front on 17th March 1918. He had no widow, so the vicar of Eighton Banks, Rev Fleetwood, was asked to verify that his next of kin were his nephew Sidney, aged seven, and niece Dora, aged five, living in 23 Eighton Terrace Wrekenton with their father, Henry Calvert. John must have continued living with his brother in law when his sister died. All John's possessions and medals were sent to Henry as his children's guardian in trust for them. John is buried in plot: VIII. B. 17, at Lapugnoy Military Cemetery, Lapugnoy, Pas-de-Calais, France. His name is often recorded as Musgrave.
