- See Henry Harrison’s entry on the Board of Trade’s Ancestry public tree.
- This information updates the group’s previous research published on the former DTI website (now archived by the National Archives).
- Do you have any more information about Henry Harrison? If so the War Memorial Research Group would love to hear from you.
Name recorded on Board of Trade Memorial: H. Harrison
Born: About November 1894 in Chelsea, London
Date of Death: 27 March 1916
Age at death: 21
Service, Regiment, Corps, etc: London Regiment
Unit, Ship, etc: 1/15th Battalion (Civil Service Rifles)
Enlisted: London
Rank: Lance Corporal (Service no: 1786)
Decorations: WW1 Campaign medals (Victory Medal, British War Medal and 1914-1915 Star)
War (and theatre): WW1 (France and Flanders)
Manner of Death: Died of Wounds (DOW)
Family Details: Son of William D and Bessie F Harrison, 45 Sandycombe Road, St Margarets, Twickenham
Residence: Twickenham
Home Department: Board of Trade – Department of Overseas Trade
Civilian Rank: Second Division Clerk
Cemetery or Memorial: Etaples Military Cemetery (VI.E.15); Board of Trade War Memorial, London; Civil Service Rifles Memorial, Somerset House, London (listed on scroll located inside memorial); Memorial plaque located in St John’s Church, Twickenham; Twickenham War Memorial, Radnor Gardens, Twickenham;
Biography:
Henry was born in about November 1894 in Chelsea, London. He was baptised on 23 December 1894 at St John’s Church, Worlds End, London. His parents were William Daniel Harrison (1854-1931) and Bessie Florence Triggs (1858-1943). He had six brothers – George William Harrison (1886-1930), Frederick Harrison (1888-1974), Arthur Harrison (1889-1894), Philip Harrison (1891-1942), Wilfred Harrison (1893-?) and William Arthur Harrison (1896-1981) and one sister – Alice Harrison (1899-1976). His father was a stonemason.
In 1901, Henry is aged 7 and living at 1 Tetcott Road, Chelsea with his family. Ten years later, the Harrison’s have moved to 23 Baronsfield Road, Twickenham.
Henry worked as a Second Division Clerk for the Department for Overseas Trade as part of the Board of Trade (so a direct forerunner of the current Department for Business and Trade).
His surviving WW1 medal card indicates that he served as a Private in the 1/15th Battalion (Civil Service Rifles) rising to the rank of Lance Corporal. From his relatively low service number (1786) we can determine that Henry enlisted in the spring 1914 prior to 4 August 1914 when war was officially declared. The battalion was an infantry unit and one of 26 battalions that formed the larger London Regiment. You can find out more about the regiment in “The Civil Service Rifles in the Great War – “All Bloody Gentlemen”” by Jill Knight (former Department for Trade and Industry (DTI) member of staff).
When the war started in August 1914, the battalion had just arrived for their annual summer camp on Salisbury Plain. They were immediately mobilised for war service and sent to train in the St Albans area and billeted in Watford in November 1914. Henry’s medal card indicates that he first served in France from 17 August 1915.
In 1915, Henry would have seen action alongside other members of the battalion at the Battle of Loos (25 September – 8 October 1915), the Actions of the Hohenzollern Redoubt (13-19 October 1915).
Henry died on 27 March 1916 aged 22 years old. He is buried in Etaples Military Cemetery, which is located about 27 kilometers south of Boulogne. During WW1 the area around Etaples was a location of a number of Commonwealth reinforcement camps and hospitals including 11 general, 1 stationary and 4 Red Cross hospitals. The cemetery contains around 10,771 Commonwealth burials from WW1 (amongst which 35 remain unidentified).
He is also remembered on a scroll located within the Civil Service Rifles War Memorial located at Somerset House in London, which was the headquarters of the battalion during WW1. In his home town of Twickenham, Henry is named on a WW1 memorial plaque located inside St Stephen’s Church and is also remembered by the local Twickenham War Memorial located in Radnor Gardens. The memorial which is Grade II* listed was designed by the sculptor Mortimer Brown representing a jubilant soldier on his return home.
Board of Trade War Memorial 