Joseph Lee MURGATROYD

O5980, Lance Corporal. b. 1892, Clayton d. Fri. 11th October 1918 (aged 26).

Only a few men ever managed to make it home during the Great War to die in their loved ones arms, and Joseph was one of these select few. Although he had been born in Clayton and had been brought up at 8, Gaythorne Terrace, he had moved away to the village of Idle and lived at 23, Sherborne Road.

He had enlisted in London in the Royal Army Ordnance Corps, a unit of men specifically given the task of organising the ordnance, surveying and mapping of the terrain that the army was fighting for.

He was posted at the end of his training to East Africa where another front with sporadic fighting was occurring, still against the Germans.

While there he contracted Malaria, which was an instant reason to be sent back to Britain providing he could survive the harsh sea journey home for someone so ill. This part he managed to live through, but on arriving in Britain found it difficult to re-adjust to the cold and damp British climate and within days he contracted pneumonia in addition to his Malaria.

He arrived back in Idle towards the end of the first week of October 1918 and only lasted for a few days before he passed away in his old home. He was laid to rest a week later in Holy Trinity Churchyard, Idle, where his war grave still stands today.

The Army Register of Personal Effects states that Joseph died at Toxteth Auxilliary Military Hospital in Liverpool on 3rd October 1918. Perhaps the story of his return with Malaria and subsequent pneumonia has been romanticised?