In Chocques Military Cemetery, France is the Commonwealth War Grave of 37642 Gunner Harold Francis Probert, serving with the 29th Battery 42nd Brigade Royal Field Artillery who died 18/04/1918.
Ian Scott has provided the following:
Harold Francis Probert was the son of Henry Probert, of Litley Nursery, Hereford, and his wife Elizabeth Cottrell. The couple married in 1891 and had 5 children: Lucy (b 1892), Cecil Henry (b 1892), Harold Francis (b 1895), Herbert Willis (b 1898) and Ross (b 1901). All were born in Tupsley, Hereford. Henry Probert the father was a market gardener, and in 1911 Harold Francis was 16 years old and working as a domestic gardener.
It is clear that Harold Probert had left home before the War. According to Soldiers died in the Great War 1914-19 he enlisted in the army on the Isle of Man. It is possible that it was gardening that took him away Hereford and that he spent time working as a gardener at Chillingham, before his removal to the Isle of Man. It may be significant that his younger brother Herbert Willis Probert attested at Sunderland in June 1915 and was posted to the 1st Northumbrian Brigade, Royal Field Artillery (TF). Herbert like Harold was a gardener.
Harold Francis served with the 29th Battery, part of 42nd Brigade, which was under orders of 3rd Division. He was killed on 18th April 1918 during the Battle of Bethune, when the 3rd Division was part of First Corps in Hornes First Army.
In 1911 Harold’s older brother Cecil Henry was living at Clifton Village near Preston, Lancashire where he was a gardener. Cecil Henry Probert served in the War (as Pte No. 27954) first with the 14th (Service) battalion Durham Light Infantry, and then with the 18th (Service) battalion DLI. In 1939 Cecil Henry and his wife Charlotte were living at Aston Rowant, Oxfordshire, and Cecil was described as a ‘head gardener’. Cecil died in 1983 aged 90.
The younger brother Herbert Willis Probert served with the Royal Field Artillery. After enlisting with the 1/1st Northumbrian Brigade RFA (TF) in June 1915, Herbert was embodied as a driver with the regimental number 2271 on 3rd June 1915. He remained in Britain for nearly two years, and embarked at Southampton on 15th March 1917 and landed at Le Havre on 16th March. He was just 19 years old. He was posted to 296th Brigade RFA, which under orders of 59th Division, subsequently he served with 63rd (RN) Division as Gunner No. 750986. He was demobilised from the Army on 21st February 1919. When he wrote to request his medals in the 1920s he gave his address as The Gardens, Cliveden, Taplow, Bucks. In the 1939 he was Parks Superintendent at Crewe.
The youngest brother Ross Probert was too young to serve in the War, but he died aged 30 in 1931. Their older sister Lily was a school teacher, she never married, and died at Ross on Wye, Herefordshire in 1990 aged 98.
Harold Francis Probert is remembered in Chillingham on C30.01 and in the Alnwick Gazette Almanack on page 53. He is also named on the memorial in the church at Tupsley, Hereford.
