Harry Arthur Wright was born in Overstrand, Norfolk on 18th August 1893 to Arthur and Caroline Wright, but grew up in Northamptonshire with his sisters Lilian and Charlotte.  His father sadly died in 1898 but his mother found a second Mr Wright, this time a widower called Joe.  Harry worked in the shoe trade and as a greengrocer before he signed up to the Royal Field Artillery.  He married a widow called Lilian Banfield at Camberwell Registry Office in March 1916, and they had a daughter Lily May to add to Lilian's three children from her previous marriage.  They lived in Nunhead in Surrey.

Harry fought in the Battle of Arras and at Vimy Ridge, and was killed in action on 29th April 1917, and subsequently buried in the Cambrin Military Cemetery aged 23.

Until we started researching our family tree about 20 years ago, my mother did not know that she had had an Uncle Harry - my mother Patricia Midgley is the daughter of Harry's sister Lilian.  She certainly did not know that he had fought and died in the Great War, although the lack of information about him after the 1911 Census led us to believe that it was a possibility.  However the name Harry Wright was so common that finding him with any certainty was difficult. His parents' local church in Kingsthorpe, Northampton, has an H Wright on the memorial plaque but no more information than that.  About three years ago my father saw a copy of the Northamptnshire volume of the Roll of Honour of the Great War, which was a publicly funded series of books where people could add a paragraph about a femily member, whether they died or survived the conflict.  Turning to the Wrights, he discovered an entry for Harry Wright, showing his parents' address in Kingsthorpe.  At one stroke, we had found Harry and lost him too.

Amazingly, the book also helped to solve the mystery of how Harry's sister Lilian had met and married Percival Midgley from Yorkshire.  Percival also served in the RFA in WW1 (and survived) and he was also listed in the Roll of Honour book for Northamptonshire at the same Kingsthorpe address.  We believe that he became friends with Harry in the trenches, came home with him on leave and met Lilian.  At any rate, they were married in March 1918, although Percival was not demobbed until 1919.

My parents joined my husband Andrew and me on a trip to visit Belgium and France, and we saw the amazing Canadian Memorial at Vimy Ridge, and of course visited Harry Wright's grave in Cambrin Military Cemetery in the Pas de Calais; we may have been the first members of his family to do so.

We will remember them.

Joanne Wilby

Legion Supporter