Peterborough & The Great War

Biography

Percy Whitelock was born in 1896 and lived in Sandon Road, Stafford. He worked as a baker’s boy, then a baker in the family business in Tithe Barn Road before he joined the army.  He went to war at the same time as his brother, Jim.  Enlisting in Litchfield at the age of 20 in February 1916, a month later he joined the 2/5 Battalion Duke of Wellington’s (West Yorkshire) Regiment.

On 10 June 1916, Private Whitelock signed the visitors’ book at Peterborough East Station, the same month his unit transferred to Somerleyton Camp, Lowestoft; possibly the reason he was at the station.  The unit deployed to France in January 1917, disembarking at Le Havre.  On 13 August 1917, the Unit War Diary records at Noreuil ‘one casualty…due to stray bullet on the 13^th’; on this date Private Whitelock was wounded with injuries to leg and buttock.

After recovery he returned to France but was wounded in the ankle on 1 June 1918, this time near Essarts, France.  After hospital treatment he was posted to Ripon, Yorkshire and was in the UK when war ended in November 1918, he was demobilised in September 1919.  He married Lydia Ward in 1919, at Rotherham and they had two children. The family lived in Sidney Avenue, Stafford.

In 1939 Percy and Lydia are living at 39 Sandon Road, Stafford with their two children, Robert (1922) and Margaret (1926).  Percy is listed as a baker’s journeyman.

Percy developed his own battery business and his final job was with Siemens. He died aged 68 in 1964.

In 2012, after the death of his son Robert, Percy’s war diaries came to light and were published in part in the Staffordshire Times by his grandchildren. Follow the link  http://bit.ly/2tHQmZE

Please get in touch if you can tell us more about Percy and his family.