In Memory of HORACE HARTSHORN Private 58607 1st Battn/Sherwood Foresters (Notts & Derby) Regiment Who was died of wounds on Thursday, 28th June 1917 Age 27 No Known Grave - Panel 39 & 41 Ypres (Menin Gate) Memorial, Belgium Commemorated in Perpetuity by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission & Remembered with Honour

Ypres (Menin Gate) Memorial, Belgium1

Horace Hartshorn was born in Ilkeston, Derbyshire in 1889², the eldest son of Samuel and Elizabeth Ann (née Mewse) Hartshorn. In 1891, Samuel, a hosiery knitter, and his wife, their son Horace and his wife's elderly father, were living at 84 Station Road, Ilkeston³. Samuel died in 1896, aged only 38⁴, following which his widow moved to Beeston where another son was born. In 1901, the family was living at 19 Derby Street, Beeston⁵, with Elizabeth supporting the family by dressmaking, and they were still at the same address in 1911, By then Horace had started work at the then recently established cabinet shop at Ericsson's Telephone Works in Beeston⁶. In 1914, Horace married Emily Hopkin at Mansfield.⁷

Although his Army Service Record has not survived, it appears that Horace enlisted, probably as a conscript, towards the end of 1916, with the Sherwood Foresters, becoming part of the 1st Battalion ⁶. This regular battalion had been on the Western Front since November 1914 but, of course, had suffered losses and required reinforcements since then. By the spring of 1917, when Horace would probably have arrived, drafts of about 30 - 50 were arriving on a fairly regular basis. During early June 1917, the battalion was at Moolenacker and took part in an attack against enemy trenched in the Ypres-Comines Canal area on the 8th, 9th and 10th, as part of the Battle of Messines Ridge. By the 15th, the battalion had arrived in Ypres from where it provided a working party to lay signal cables. This continued for several days, during which there was heavy and persistent shelling by the enemy and there were several casualties, particularly on the 17th⁸. It appears likely that Private Hartshorn was among those wounded at this time and that he died of these wounds a few days later the 28th June 1917. Although these circumstances imply that he would have been buried, it appears that his grave was not found subsequently. Now with no known grave, his name is listed on Panel 39 & 41 at Ypres (Menin Gate) Memorial in Belgium.

Private Hartshorn was posthumously awarded the Victory and British medals⁹. His Army financial effects of £2 2s 1d were paid to his widow, as his sole legatee, on 30 November 1917 and she received his War Gratuity of £3 on 23 October 1919¹⁰.

Samuel Leonard Hartshorn, Horace's younger brother, served with 2nd Battalion Sherwood Foresters and was killed in action, aged 20, in February 1917¹².

Emily Hartshorn, Horace's widow, is known to have continued to live in Beeston, at 4 Victor Terrace on Wollaton Road, into the mid-1920s and is then believed to have married again and moved away¹³. Elizabeth, his mother, continued to live at 19 Derby Street, Beeston, at least into the 1930s¹⁴.

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Footnotes
¹The photograph of the Ypres (Menin Gate) Memorial, Belgium is from the Commonwealth War Graves Commission website. (http://www.cwgc.org)
²His birth was registered, in Basford Registration District (of which Ilkeston was then part) in Q3/1889 (Ref 7b 154).
³1891 Census. Piece 2666 Folio 28.
⁴His death appears to be that registered in Basford Registration District in Q1/1896. The certificate has not been seen.
⁵1901 Census, Piece 3153 Folio 10. Horace's siblings were Ernest (b. c1894), Samuel Leonard (1896-1917) and Frank (b. c1898). Two others had died in infancy.
⁶1911 Census, Piece 20426 RD429 SD3 ED1 Sched 128.
⁷Their marriage was registered in Mansfield Registration District in Q3/1914 (Ref 7b 193). The certificate has not been seen but it appears likely that she was the daughter of Levi (a collier) and Ann (née Torr) Hopkin who, in 1911, was working as a domestic servant in Nottingham.
⁸His service is calculated as not more than 12 months based on the amount of his War Gratuity.
⁸Details of 1st Battalion deployment in June 1917 are from its war diaries.
⁹Horace Hartshorn's medal awards are recorded in the Medal Rolls available on ancestry.com.
¹⁰Army Registers of Soldiers' Effects, 1901-1929, available on ancestry.com.
¹²Samuel Leonard's memorial page can be viewed here
¹³Emily is recorded at that address on Electoral Rolls in 1921 to 1926. It appears probable that she married Enoch Hill in Mansfield in 1926 and moved to the Southwell/Newark area.
¹⁴Elizabeth is recorded at that address on Electoral Rolls in 1921 to 1930. It appears likely that she died in Q3/1938, aged 77, in Newark Registration District (GRO Reg 7b 386). This location may relate to Emily's marriage and relocation to this area.

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