This article was first published by the Pirton Magazine in July/August 2004, and is provided courtesy of the magazine, the editor Derek Jarrett. Further acknowledgments appear at the end of the article.

HARRY CRAWLEY

By the end of 1916, as statesmen and generals continued to blunder, nine young men from Pirton had already died in the bloodiest war in history. In the next twenty-two months, the number of Pirton casualties was to treble. Torn from the peacefulness, if relative poverty, of Pirton, some of these men had volunteered in the euphoria of Kitchener's appeal that 'Your Country Needs You', others were conscripted as the numbers of dead at the Front continued to escalate.

Of some of the thirty Pirton First World War memorial names we know much, of others we know little. Harry Crawley was one of the first two Pirton victims of 1917. He was probably typical of millions who died in the Great War, known only in their home villages during peace, in the trenches during the War and recorded on memorials in death. We know relatively little about Harry, but we record what we can. We hope that these articles may lead to more being known of these 'Pirton Heroes'. Their histories must be recorded, 'Lest we forget'.

For many years Middle Farm was an essential part of Pirton. Until its demolition in 1967, it stood in the heart of the village, where Docklands and some of the newer houses in Crabtree Lane (nos. 14-18) now stand. It was part of the High Down property owned by Priory Estates, and after a fire in the farmyard in 1865, Middle Farm was divided into two houses. It was into one of these that Charlie Crawley (full name Henry Charles Crawley) and his young wife Minnie (nee Cherry) moved around 1880. Their home was where Hilda Handscombe now lives at 16 Crabtree Lane. Charlie, like most village men, was a farm labourer and had been born at Kings Walden. It may have been there that he and Minnie married, certainly they are not on the St. Mary's register.

Harry was born in 1882, by which time his parents were at Middle Farm. As a labourer, Harry's father had to take work where he could and whilst the family appear on the 1891 census, ten years later their names do not appear in Pirton.

Whilst Charlie and Minnie struggled to earn enough to survive, their family grew. Harry was probably the oldest of five or six children. There was Albert Vincent, Frank and two sisters and the youngest, Phil, was baptized at St. Mary's in 1902. Many of the older Pirton people remember Phil , whose son Ron has lived in Danefield Road for many years.

It seems that Harry did not marry and we do not know his work after leaving school around 1896. By the time the Great War started, he was 32. It is possible he may have been a regular soldier before the commencement of the great conflict, but we do know that he became Private 6539 in the Bedfordshire Regiment. With the terrible losses of the War with the need for more and more men to go to the Front, there were many amalgamations of battalions and the creation of new regiments. Some time before 1917, Harry became Private H. Crawley 33153 of the 6th Battalion, Leicestershire Regiment.

On 6th Aug 1914, Parliament had sanctioned an increase of half million men in all ranks of the regular army. Three weeks later, Kitchener asked for another 100,000, called K2. 6th Battalion was formed at Leicester in August 1914, part of Kitchener's, new army. In April 1915 the Leicestershire men went for training on Salisbury Plain and on 29th July 1915 the battalion embarked for France and Flanders. Harry would have been just one man in the 22 battalions increased from its pre-war establishment of 2 regular, 1 reserve and 4 territorial battalions. He was to become just, one in the Regiment that lost 336 officers and 6692 soldiers.

It may be that Harry was one of the Leicestershire men who were in the trenches in the Quarries area north of Loos. We do know that on 26th February 1917 he was fatally wounded. He had become another war dead, mourned back home in Pirton, unnoticed by the warlords. He is buried at the Bethune Town Cemetery, Pas de Calais, France. Ref 6.B.75

*** For help with this article we thank: Clare Baines, Michael Newbery, Ron Crawley, Lynda Smith www.roll-of-honour.com, Helen Hofton, Jonty Wild, that local history gem 'A Foot on Three Daises’ and Chris Ryan for Pirton war memorial photos.

The oak panel in St. Mary's, carved by Miss Pollard of High Down, bearing the names of the fallen of Pirton in the 1914-18 War.

Points of contact are:
Pirton Website Jonty Wild via jontywild@pirton.org.uk

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Please get in touch jontywild@pirton.org.uk

Also if anyone would like copy of any Pirton WW1 war grave or memorial please contact Jonty Wild, digital copies for personal use will be provided free of charge to relatives, photographs can be provided for a small charge.

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