Harold WHALEY

40288, Private. b. 1884, Clayton d. Sat. 25th May 1918 (aged 35).

Harold had been one of the first men to be called up in late 1915, and had joined the Royal Field Artillery leaving the family business as a stuff merchant behind him, which he ran with his father Joe Whaley. He had worked his way through the business since leaving school and in 1901 was a Draper’s Shop Assistant attached to the firm.

When he got to France, like so many of the other first conscripts he found that he and many other men were separated and put in the most ‘needy’ regiments. Harold ended up in the 1st Battalion, Cheshire Regiment, a regular unit that had seen service in France from the very start of the war. Harold was fortunate to be able to stay with this unit for the next eighteen months in so much as he was not wounded during his time at the front.
Unfortunately, Harold’s time came at the turning point that marked the end of the German Spring Offensive as the Allies began the Battles of the Aisne and Marne.

During the Spring Offensive, Harold’s battalion was moved south to the small but crucial Italian Front, where the Allies were attempting to apply pressure to an already stretched German force and find a way through the deadlock, in a similar way to what Gallipoli was supposed to be.

An interesting discrepancy occurs in Harold’s service record at this point, as all the British Press record him as being killed by a German sniper on the Italian Front, but his final resting place is just in a small French village called Tannay – just behind what was the front line in that region at the time of Harold’s death.

Harold was married to Hetty and the couple lived at ‘Ingfield’, Oakleigh, Clayton. He is buried at Tannay British Cemetery, Thiennes. His headstone is inscribed “Dearly loved, sadly missed”.

Hetty moved to Morcambe after the war and this is the correspondence address for Harold’s medals and her war widows pension.

Harold’s brother, Edward George was born in 1901 and so just missed being called up to fight in the 1914-18 war.