BLOOR, ISAAC ("Ike")

Photograph with kind permission from the Uttoxeter Advertiser

Isaac was a colourful character.

Before the war he was one of four young men who were prosecuted for poaching rabbits. Two of the others were his brothers John and Henry. In common with so many families at that time, this implies that they may have been struggling to make ends meet and were supplementing their diet or income with stolen rabbits.

At the beginning of April 1914, just four months before he left Uttoxeter to go to war, the Uttoxeter Advertiser published the following article^[1j] about his poaching activities:

 “Trespass by Uttoxeter Men.

Isaac Bloor, John Bloor, Henry Bloor and Charles Harper, labourers, Uttoxeter, were summoned for trespassing in search of game on January 15 and March 15. Mr. E. I. Lewis, Uttoxeter, defended.

Arthur Ernest Heath, gamekeeper at Leigh and Fole for Mrs. Evans, deposed that at 4 p.m. on March 15 he was on the watch on land belonging to Mr.Stevenson, in company with about fifteen others, including P.C.’s Clark and Taylor, owing to complaints with reference to game trespass.

Witness saw the defendants beating the road with dogs in the vicinity of Fole, and presently the dogs chased a rabbit which ran into a “drum”, two of the defendants following. The other two men were left in the road in order to give notice of anyone approaching. The first two men went fifteen or twenty yards into the field when they were warned that someone was approaching, and they rejoined the other defendants.

Later the men went into another field in which witness and his companions were concealed.

They showed a tendency to run away on being discovered, but P.C. Taylor said he knew them all.

By Mr. Lewis: Witness searched the men, but found nothing in the way of game on them.

A son of the last witness corroborated, and Mr. J. Stevenson, of Fole, said the present case was not an isolated one, but was a regular weekly practice.

P.C. Taylor also gave evidence of a similar nature.

Isaac Bloor, in the box, admitted being at Fole with the other defendants on the day in question. Witness did not see any of the dogs running a rabbit, and it was untrue that he and one of the other defendants followed the dogs into a field.

Charles Harper also gave evidence, completely denying the charge. – By the Clerk (Mr. Wilkins): The witnesses’ evidence was “all lies”.

The Clerk: What was your object in taking the dogs such a long way that afternoon?

Defendant: We were after flowers.

Mr. Lewis suggested the possibility of the gamekeeper having made a mistake in the identity of the defendants.

Defendants were fined 5s. and 9s. costs, or 14 days’ imprisonment each.”

Isaac was the youngest of three soldier sons ^{[1a, 1i, 5]} and a brother of Harry, ^[5] also fell.

Isaac had been in the local Territorial Company for several years when war broke out ^{[1a, 1i]} andhe left Uttoxeter on the 6^th of August 1914 with the first contingent of the Uttoxeter company of the 1^st/6^th North Staffordshire Regiment^{[1h, 5ai]} .This, of course, means that he was one of that special set of men known as the ‘Old Contemptibles’.

He came through the battle of Loos in October 1915 unscathed^[1i], when so many other Uttoxeter men were killed or wounded, and when his period of service expired at Christmas 1915, he rejoined for home service only^[1i]. Later, however, he offered himself for service again, but his luck ran out. He was drafted to France about six weeks before he was killed ^{[1a, 1c, 1i]}.

In the 2nd week of July 1916 his parents learnt in a letter from this brother James that he had gone missing. James mentioned that the Uttoxeter men had been in the thick of the fighting. ^[1a]

It was not until the end of July that his parents received official notification that he had died on the 1st day of the Somme.

In August 1916 the Uttoxeter Advertiser published an article^[1d] in which it was said that Isaac had been 'a well built young fellow and quite fearless - a fine type of the British soldier'. It was also stated that his comrades had said that he met his death fighting like a hero.

The roll of honour says that he died at Gommecourt.

Isaac is buried in Balleul Road East Cemetery, St. Laurent – Blangy

Isaac is in Plot II.J. This plot, along with a number of others in the cemetery, was created after the Armistice by bringing isolated graves in from a very wide area North, East and South of Arras. Gommecourt, where Isaac died, is barely 4km south of Arras.