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

JOSEPH HANDSCOMBE

It all seemed a good and straight-forward idea. Thirty names on our village First World War Memorial - take the names in the order that they are recorded and write an article in the Magazine about each.

A few have living relatives in the village who have helped, many appear on old records such as census forms in 1891 or 1901 (the latest that can be seen), church baptism records or in the recently discovered scrapbook of war cuttings. In a few cases photographs, nearly a century old, have been found. We have included all that we could find.

Here we write about the Joseph Handscombe. So many of us in the village believe it so important that we record all that we can, for as we move further away from those awful war years, more memories will be lost.

There are many awful aspects of that 'War to end All Wars', the terrible and pointless loss of so many young men, the gross stupidity of many political and war 'generals'. But when we read those words on many a memorial 'No known grave', we discover that virtually nothing is known about some of these Pirton men.

In this article we record the relatively little information known about Joseph Handscombe.

In 1915, Martha and George Handscombe learnt of the death of their eighth child, Frank, killed in action. When they received this tragic news, Joseph, was already in France, along with another son, Harry. Martha and George must have dreaded receiving further awful family news

Joseph Handscombe was truly a Pirton man; his ancestors were of the village and the family link continues to this day. In 1883 George Handscombe, a 41 year old labourer, married Martha Dawson, aged 25; both of Pirton. Joseph was the ninth often children shown in the 1901 census household. He was baptised at St. Mary's .

This large family lived in a thatched cottage in Shillington Road. It was set back from the road, near to the present no. 15 Shillington Road. One of Joseph's older sisters, Jane, was the mother of Joe Titmuss and Margaret Ingram, both now living in Royal Oak Lane. Joe and Margaret well remember visiting their grandmother (Joseph’s mother) in the cottage later demolished (as was its successor, replaced by the large house still under construction). In fact, Joe Titmuss was named after his uncle Joseph.

Joseph was born in 1897 and just after the turn of the century will have daily walked from his home in Shillington Road, up the slight hill of High Street to the village school. School was all about the 'three R's' with large classes and rather unhygienic conditions, but then Pirton was a 'poor' village and most homes were crowded, water to be collected from a nearby pump and hard-working parents having to save every penny to raise their families.

Within a very few years of leaving school, almost certainly occupied by joining the rank of Pirton men who worked on the surrounding farms, Joseph followed brothers Frank and Harry into the army. He enlisted at Ampthill and became Private 23086 of the 4th Battalion of the Bedfordshire Regiment.

In 1915 he received the awful news that his brother Frank had been killed. Nine months later it seems likely that 19 year old Joseph was a member of the 4th Battalion who landed at Le Havre and went to the Front. On 23rd April 1917, Joseph was killed in action. He is commemorated at the Arras Memorial, Pas de Calais, France. Bay 5.

Following the death of Frank in 1915, the wait for news of their other two sons at The Front must have been awful. For Martha and George Handscombe, the news reaching them in the spring of 1917, of the death of another son, is too terrible to imagine. When the War was over, their only solace must have been that Harry returned home physically unscathed. In fact, when Harry returned home he brought with him a large number of nails, sold them and after accumulating a little bit of wealth built eight of the houses in Royal Oak Lane. He later moved to Harrow where he lived and built several shops.

George, Joseph's father, aged 77 died on 11th December 1919 and his mother, Martha, on 15th November 1931. Both are buried in St. Mary's churchyard.

*** For help with this article we thank: Joe Titmuss, Margaret Ingram, Clare Baines, Denise Marshall, Lynda Smith www.roll-of-honour.com, Rita Chambers, Helen Hofton, Jonty Wild. and 'A Foot on Three Daisies'.
 

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

We would like to ask for your help, if you have any information, photographs or artefacts:

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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