GRIFFIN, HAROLD SAMPSON

 

 

Source

CWGC

SDGW

Uttoxeter Advertiser

Other

Parents

Mr. & Mrs. John Griffin, Bootmaker

 

 

 

2

Position in the family

Eldest son

 

 

 

2

Where born

Bramshall, Staffordshire

 

Yes

 

2

When born

About 1889

 

 

 

4

Address

Uttoxeter

 

Yes

 

 

Parents: Birch Cross, Marchington, Staffordshire

 

 

 

2

Wife: Smallwood Lodge, Uttoxeter

Yes

 

 

 

Spouse

Mrs. G. V. Trubshaw (formerly Griffin)

Yes

 

 

 

Children

 

 

 

 

 

Employment Before Joining up

Footman at Smallwood Manor, Staffordshire

 

 

 

2

When enlisted

July 1915

 

 

 

2

Where enlisted

Derby

 

Yes

 

2

Regiment

King’s Royal Rifle Corps

Yes

Yes

1b

2

Unit

18th Bn.

Yes

Yes

1b

 

18th (S) Bn

 

 

 

2

Rank

Sergeant

Yes

Yes

1b

 

Service Number

C/6586

Yes

Yes

 

2

Date of Death

20 September 1917

 

 

1b

 

21 September 1917

Yes

Yes

 

2

Age at time of death

28

Yes

 

 

 

Where Killed or died

France/Flanders

 

Yes

 

 

France

 

 

1b

 

How he died

Killed in action

 

Yes

 

 

Location of Grave or Memorial

Hooge Crater Cemetery – Grave XIII. L. 4.

Yes

 

 

3

Marchington Woodlands St. John Church War Memorial

 

 

 

2

Awards

 

 

 

 

 

Harold wasthe eldest son[2]. His father was a bootmaker, who lived at Birch Cross, Marchington, Staffordshire[2].

Before the war he was a footman at Smallwood Manor, Staffordshire[2]. The Manor still exists, but is now a school.

Harold enlisted at Derby in July 1915[2].

He went to France on the 2nd of May 1916[2] and was wounded in the head by shellfire on the 9th of July 1916[2], barely two months later. The wounds must have been serous because he was returned to England to recover[2] and he did not return to France until December 1916[2], some five months afterwards.

He had a period of leave at home in July 1917[2] and then went back to the front again. Presumably this was the last time his family saw him alive because he was killed at Hooge, in the Ypres salient, Belgium, two months later.

 

Harold is buried in the Hooge Crater Cemetery, near Ypres.

His grave is the 4th from the left in the front row of this picture

 

The words chosen by his family for the foot of his headstone were ‘Peace, Perfect Peace’.

 

This memorial notice was posted in the Uttoxeter Advertiser in September 1919 to commemorate the second anniversary of his death

GRIFFIN. – In Loving Memory of our Dear Son, Sergt. H. S. Griffin, 18th K.R. Rifles, who was killed in France, September 20, 1917.

“Gone, but not forgotten.”

- From Father, Mother, Brothers and Sisters.