On the Thiepval Memorial to the Missing of the Somme, France is the name of SP/2583 Corporal Norris Ridley Johnson, serving with the 24th Battalion Royal Fusiliers, who died 13/11/1916.
Colin McMillan has provided the following:
Norris Ridley Johnson’s birth is registered in the July, August, September quarter of 1891 at Hexham (volume 10b, page 358). He was Corporal SP/2583 of 24th Battalion Royal Fusiliers and according to the CWGC was the son of Isabella Johnson and the late John Johnson of Moat View, Wark on Tyne.
In the 1901 census the 9-year old Norris was living in the Simonburn civil parish (St. Mungo, Simonburn ecclesiastical parish) in the rural district of Hexham. The address was given as 5 Parkside, and his father, John Johnson was the 65-year old head of the household. The others were Norris’s mother, Isabella, 47, and his siblings, Joseph, 25, Isabella, 22, Hugh, 20 and Amy B, 15. John was a farmer and auctioneer while Norris’s mother Isabella is not shown as being employed. Joseph was also an auctioneer (own account), and both daughters were listed as mother’s assistant, domestic, at home. Hugh was a farmer’s son. They had a servant: George W. Forster who was 17 and single and whose profession or occupation was shown as farm(?) servant.
At the time of the 1911 Census a Morris Ridley Johnson was living in Morpeth. He was 19, single, a bank clerk and one of 6 boarders (two of whom appear to be an elderly retired farmer and his wife). The head of the house was Elizabeth Burn and hers was a boarding house at 33 Howard Terrace, Morpeth.
The initials, surname, battalion, regiment and rank all fit so it appears Norris had moved away from his native Hexham because of employment in Morpeth and for leisure or sport activities became a member of Morpeth’s YMCA.
Morpeth Herald 01/12/1916 carries an obituary:
News has been received that Corporal Norris Ridley Johnson, Royal Fusiliers (Sporting Battalion), was killed in action in France on November 13th. Corporal Johnson, before joining the Army, was in Barclays Bank, Morpeth, where he was much respected, being a young man of great promise. For some time he attended Morpeth Auction Mart on behalf of Barclays Bank, and was well liked by the farmers and butchers there. He was well known in Morpeth, and very popular with his comrades. He was an active member of the Morpeth Golf Club and the Morpeth Y.M.C.A. and a member of the football team of the association. He was 25 years of age, and youngest son of Mrs and the late John Johnson, Parkside, Wark on Tyne.
Norris Ridley Johnson is remembered in Morpeth on M17.01, M17.09, M17.18 and M17.29 and in London on a plaque in the Head Office of Barclays Bank.
