Jean Longstaff has submitted the following:-
John’s father, also named John, was from Cambridge and his mother Charlotte nee Makepeace from North Shields and they had married in West Hartlepool in September 1881. John was born in West Hartlepool on 26th October 1889 and baptised in Stranton Church a month later. By 1891 the family were living in Seaton Carew where his father was a labourer at the cement works, but all his five siblings, Ethel , Charles, Daisy, Walter and Dora, are listed as being born in West Hartlepool, which is where the family were living in Ada Street at the time of the 1901 census. John was working as a blacksmith’s striker for the railway by 1911 and was still living with his parents and younger siblings Daisy, Walter and Dora in Brook Street.
March 1912 saw John embarking for a new life in Canada and he travelled as a blacksmith, making for Toronto. He visited his family two years later returning to Montreal in April 1914 and seven months later enlisted in the Canadian Expeditionary Force, naming his father in Hartlepool as his next of kin and mentioning the four years he spent in the Northern Cyclist’s Battalion, part of the Territorial Army. Becoming Private 85323 John was posted to the ammunition column, 6th Brigade, Canadian Field Artillery and arrived back in England in February 1915 to be based at Shorncliffe Camp. On 12th June he was part of a draft posted to France to join the 1st Artillery Brigade, and in November was transferred to the 1st Battalion joining them in Dranoutre before going into the front line trenches. On leave in the UK at the end of January 1916 John returned to his unit where the weeks were spent alternating between the trenches and work behind the lines. On 17th May the 1st Battalion relieved the 8th Battalion in the trenches and it was here in the trenches at The Bluff at Ypres that Private 65323 John Ingle was killed in action on 20th May 1916.
John Ingle is remembered in West Hartlepool on W111.54 and W111.86 page 20 and in the Hartlepool Northern Daily Mail
He is also remembered in Canada on their Virtual War Memorial and in their Book of Remembrance.
Canadian Book of Remembrance
Canadian Virtual War Memorial
The CWGC entry for Private Ingle
