LANCE CORPORAL, 12841, JOHN HENRY TURNER, 9TH BATTALION WEST RIDING REGIMENT. (ILKLEY PALS).


LANCE CORPORAL, 12841, JOHN HENRY TURNER, 9TH BATTALION WEST RIDING REGIMENT. (ILKLEY PALS). KILLED IN ACTION 6TH JULY 1916

Lance Corporal John Henry Turner was another Ilkley Pal who died on the 6th July. In the front line near to Contalmaison, the 9th Duke of Wellingtons were subjected to continued German artillery fire. Seeking shelter in the dugouts that lined the trench wall did not give much protection against high explosive shells. John, is reported to have been asleep when a shell struck the trench where he was lying killing him instantly. John Turner was born in 1880 in a small back-to-back house at 43 Bright Street in the New Wortley district of Leeds. His father was an engine driver with North Eastern Railway who moved to Ilkley in the 1890s living at 3 Railway Terrace. Young John obtained a position at Ilkley Railway Station as a porter and lived with the family of another porter, William Rooks, at Wilmot House on Railway Road. Before the outbreak of war he and his younger brother Albert, began work as carters specialising in furniture removal and lived together at 4, Wilmot Road. John Turner has no known grave and is commemorated on the Thiepval Memorial to the Missing and is remembered on Ilkley War Memorial.

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