Prince PULLAN

307642, Rifleman. b. 1884, Thornton d. Thu. 25th April 1918 (aged 34).

Prince was the only Riflemen to die from Clayton, all the others being standard Private soldiers: this rank was for those select few men who were first class marksman.

Prince had joined up in 1915 but unlike most other men he had trained as a Gunner in the Royal Field Artillery until he was transferred in 1916. It was quite unusual for men to be re-trained, as a Gunner’s job was totally different to an infantryman’s job. For whatever reason, Prince was retrained and posted to the 1st/6th West Yorkshire’s who were in the front line in early 1917.

His time at the front was to be short however, as by the beginning of August 1917 he had been invalided home with severe gas poisoning. It looked for a time as though he would not pull through but fortunately fate was on his side and he was able to recover fully.

This injury was to spare him the torment of the autumn campaigns on the Ypres Salient, and when he returned to Belgium in early 1918 it was deemed a quiet spell in the trenches. His battalion would have had a totally different constitution upon his return though, as the majority of comrades he left the previous Autumn would no longer be there; instead groups of ‘fresh faced’ 18 and 19 year olds would have taken their place as the British Army felt the full grip of the Conscription Act. By the end of the war the average age of a soldier dropped from the late twenties to just nineteen years old.

Fate caught up with Prince three months later though, as the Spring Offensive claimed his life at the end of April 1918. Having made it through the initial battles of late March and early April, Prince was killed in action as the German advance slowed down. At this point they had made an advance of nearly 30 out of their 40 miles into Allied territory and with still little sign of letting up, British Forces continued to plough men into the defence of their trenches, many times to little or no avail.

Prince lived at 64, Highgate at Clayton Heights, but had grown up on Roundhill Place off Back Lane in Clayton with his father Jesse and his mother Sarah until he married Annis Hudson. His profession given in the 1911 census was a Mason’s Hewer – following his fathers footsteps.

At the time of the Armistice Prince’s wife Annis was still appealing to the returning troops for information relating to her husband. Prince had been another soul who had simply ‘vanished’ into Flanders Fields – eventually, he was recorded as presumed dead, one of the many recorded on the Tyne Cot Memorial in Belgium.