Memorial Plaque

Jean Longstaff has submitted the following:-

Despite giving his year of birth as 1897 when he enlisted in the Canadian Expeditionary Force, John William Harry Brown was actually born on 29th January 1899 at 11 Cumberland Street, West Hartlepool, and he had two sisters, Mary and Alice, and an elder brother Thomas. After his father, Thomas, died in 1910, the family moved to live with his married sister Mary in Cornwell Street, prior to setting out for a new life in Canada, although neither Mary and her new family or his brother Thomas made the journey with them.

He and his mother, Margaret, along with his sister Alice Maud settled in Montreal and John found work as a clerk and joined the 55th Regiment Irish Rangers. John signed his attestation papers in Montreal eight days before his seventeenth birthday and became Private 841532 attached to 148th Battalion. In May 1916 John was in hospital in Montreal with rheumatism in his feet and it was recommended that he wore built-up boots. Assigning his pay to his widowed mother as he was her only son in Canada, John sailed with the battalion on SS Laconia arriving in England on 6th October 1916 and was posted to Witley Camp in Surrey. Four days after having made out his paybook will in favour of his mother on 25th November, John was transferred to the 14th Battalion and found himself in France, where the battalion was acting as divisional support until mid December when they moved into the trenches for a week. Alternating between brigade support work and being in the trenches, on 17th March John was appointed Lance Corporal. The end of March again found the Battalion in the trenches in the Thelus sector of Vimy Ridge and it was here that Lance Corporal Brown received a shotgun wound that fractured his left thigh.

Treated at #4 Stationary Hospital at Abbeville, John was listed as dangerously ill and was evacuated on a hospital ship to the Royal Herbert Hospital at Woolwich, arriving on 17th May, where he died on 9th June 1917 from a haemorrhage after an operation to amputate his left leg.

John William Harry Brown’s body was claimed by his sister living at 26 Cornwall Street, West Hartlepool and was buried in Stranton Cemetery. His medals and memorial plaque were sent to his mother, who had returned to live in West Hartlepool.

John William Harry Brown is remembered at Hartlepool on H115.18 and H115.30 at West Hartlepool on W111.55, W111.76 and W111.86

He is also remembered on the Canadian Virtual War Memorial and in their Book of Remembrance.

Canadian Virtual War Memorial
Canadian Book of Remembrance
The CWGC entry for Lance Corporal Brown