Harold  John MacBeth worked in the head office of the Commercial Union Assurance Company Ltd in London. He was a clerk in the Fire Department, Consequential Loss Section. He enlisted in the 1/16th Battalion, County of London Regiment, The Queen Victoria Rifles as a Private and went overseas on 1st November 1914. On 2 December 1915 he was gazetted 2nd Lieutenant with the 3/17th Battalion Country of London Regiment (the Poplar & Stepney Rifles). He was killed in action in an attack by the 47th London Division on High Wood in the Somme. He was killed on the same day and in the same attack as his brother Stanley, a Lieutenant in the 1/18th Battalion, County of London Regiment, the Irish Rifles. Stanley had been in France for 12 days. They are both buried in Caterpillar Valley Cemetery, Longueval, in the same row, just two graves apart. Harold was 26.

Anna Stone