Patsy Reid has sent this:
John Penman R. Wilkinson aged 18 was killed in action in France and Flanders in 1916. His home town was Pelton, Durham, but there doesn't seem to be any Memorial to him in Pelton or Durham. (See below)
My connection to John P. R. Wilkinson was discovered when I was researching my great grandparents David and Jane Carrick Penman of New Monkland, Lanarkshire. David's brother John Penman married Catherine Penman in New Monkland then moved to Durham where he worked as a coal miner. They had three children, James and Peter, who both emigrated to Australia in the 1870s, and a daughter, Jane Penman who married George Wilkinson. John Penman R Wilkinson was their only son but he had two sisters Ann Ridley Wilkinson and Catherine Wilkinson.
What John would not know though was that two of his second cousins were also lost in First World War conflicts. Three young men fighting for their country and making the ultimate sacrifice. James Penman, John Penman R Wilkinson and Peter Penman fighting for their country and lost too soon. May they Rest in Peace, their valour always remembered with great pride and honour.
John Penman Ridley Wilkinson is remembered at Pelton Church on P26.01 where his name is split between two columns.
He is also remembered in the D.L.I. Book of Remembrance page 51
