15563 Pte Harry Humphrey, 11th Northumberland Fusiliers

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Date: 7 July 1916.

Connection: 1914-1915 Star trio.

109 years ago today, 15563 Private Harry Humphrey of the 11th Battalion, Northumberland Fusiliers, was killed in action during the fighting at Bailiff Wood on the Somme. 

Harry was born in Quay Corner, Jarrow on Tyne in 1896, the son of Edmund Eckford Humphrey a Raftman for a Timber Merchant, and his wife Sarah. The 1911 census records Harry as a 14-year-old Colliery Labourer above ground residing at 91 Brussels Street, Gateshead with his widowed father and two sisters. Enlisting at North Shields he served in France with the 11th Battalion Northumberland Fusiliers from 25th August 1915 and was killed in action on the 7th July 1916 aged 19 years during his Battalion’s attack on Bailiff Wood. The battalion suffered 264 casualties mainly from German Machine Gun fire from the direction of Contalmaison. 

Harry has no known grave and is commemorated on the Thiepval Memorial to the Missing.

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