Category: Military
Rank: Private 51764
Regiment or Ship: 11th Battalion Royal Fusiliers
Service Number(s): 51764
Occupation: Farm Labourer (1911 census)
Date of Birth: 16.06.1890
Place of Birth: Ninfield, Sussex
Date of Death: 28.12.1917
Place of Burial / Memorials:
Wimereux Communal Cemetery – Grave/Memorial Reference:VIII. B. 13A.
Address: 1 Sadler’s Cottage (1911 census and CWGC website), Hooe, East Sussex
Photos and newspaper articles
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Family Information
Parents:
Jesse and Martha Hutchinson (née Mitchell) who lived at Akehurst Farm, Hooe. Jesse worked as an agricultural labourer. He was born in Crowhurst in 1848 and his wife Martha Mitchell was born in Ninfield in 1856. They were married in Hastings in 1878.
Harry was the youngest of their four children.
Siblings:
Edith Lillie born in Hooe in 1881
Rufus Henry born in Hooe in 1885
Nellie Ann Mary Hutchinson born in Hooe in 1888
In the September quarter of 1914, there was a marriage of a Harry F. Hutchinson to an Alice E. Clarke but without obtaining the marriage certificate it is impossible to say if this marriage is this Harry Frank Hutchinson.
No record has been found of any children, with the surname Hutchinson and with the mother’s maiden name of Clarke, which means that either the marriage is not this Frank or the couple had no children.
First World War Experience
Harry enlisted in Bexhill. The 11th Battalion was a “service” battalion, formed at Hounslow, on 6th September 1914. Lord Kitchener formed four armies based on how he saw the war progressing and what he believed the country needed. The 11th Battalion became part of Kitchener’s Army No. 2 (known as K2).
The 11th Battalion landed in Boulogne, France in July 1915, so he was entitled to British War and Victory medals but not the 1914 Star. His Medal Roll Index Card gives a service no. of GS/51764 – the “GS” letters indicating that he had enlisted in the British Army General Service.
None of his service records have survived. The only information comes from his Medal Roll Index Card which tells us very little, and the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, which doesn’t tell us much more.
The 11th Battalion does not appear to have taken part in any major battles around the time of his death, so it is not possible to determine what the wounds were that he died of.
Additional Information
Other addresses: Workhouse Hill, Ninfield, East Sussex (1901 census)