Peterborough & The Great War

Biography

Private Rose passed through Peterborough East Station and signed the visitors’ book on 29 March 1917.  His entry reveals he was serving with the 13 Battalion Essex Regiment.

Born in Shipdham, Norfolk on 30 March 1893, he was one of at least 12 children born to Samuel and Frances Rose.  His father had been a cowman and by 1911 he was a coal merchant and innkeeper at The Jolly Farmer Inn, Carbrooke, Norfolk.  In 1911, Horace was recorded as a miller but by 1914, when he attested to the Norfolk Regiment, he was a gardener.  He attested on 25 November 1914, and was posted to the Norfolk Regiment Depot until September 1915 when he transferred overseas to the 3^rd and then 1^st Battalions Essex Regiment.  We are not sure whether he joined his Battalion at Gallipoli before being evacuated, or in Egypt.  His next record is for 12 days ‘Field Punishment for being Drunk on Duty’ in Alexandria just after Christmas 1915.

In January 1916, he was hospitalised in Suez with dysentery and again in February at Cairo.  In March 1916, he was aboard the hospital transport ship Lake Manitoba sailing from Port Said to Marseilles.  He re-joined his Battalion on 26 April 1916, but was hospitalised again on 28 May with Neuralgia (shell shock) for a week.  Horace re-joined the 1^st Essex in the field on 04 June 1916.  On 10 October 1916, he suffered a gunshot wound and was treated by a Field Ambulance Unit and then went to a convalescence depot in Rouen, returning to action with the 13^th (Service) Battalion Essex Regiment, the West Ham Pals.

‘The 13th Essex was recruited at the start of World War One from the West Ham area and as such the majority of recruits were supporters of West Ham Football Club’. http://bit.ly/2remfaq

In February 1917, he was withdrawn from front line duty with ‘Trench Foot’.  He was repatriated to the UK aboard the Panama on 03 March 1917, and later posted to the 3^rd Battalion Base Depot at Warley, Essex.  He was transferred to the Labour Corps in October 1917, in 363, 581 and 298 Companies in the UK at Felixstowe and Ripon.  In October 1918, he sailed from Folkstone to Boulogne to join 39 Company Labour Corps and was discharged in March 1919.

We are unable to trace any further information relating to Horace until the 1939 Register which records him living with his parents, he is recorded as a farm worker.  We found no marriage or children for Horace and we think he died in Wisbech in 1963 aged 70.

Can you help is fill the gaps, was he a member of your family?  Please get in touch if you can tell us more.

The 13th Essex was recruited at the start of World War One from the West Ham area and as such the majority of recruits were supporters of West Ham Football Club. http://bit.ly/2remfaq