SERGEANT JOHN RHODES CRABTREE, 9th BATTALION WEST YORKSHIRE REGIMENT. KILLED IN ACTION 11th JULY 1915, AGED 22 YEARS.





John Rhodes Crabtree was born in 1893 in Bradford and was the son a of a hosiery manufacturer who had premises in Well Street, in the Little Germany area of the city. Before the war the Crabtree family had moved to Ilkley and lived in a house called Hathaway on Connaught Road. John attended Bradford Grammar School until 1909 when he was sent to a draper in Leicester to learn a trade. In August 1914 he enlisted in the 9th West Yorkshire Regiment and on 11th July 1915 was serving with his battalion on the Gallipoli Peninsula. On 9th August he was involved in an attack on Turkish lines at Lala Baba Hill when his unit was counter-attacked. The West Yorkshires suffered heavy casualties, including Sergeant John Crabtree who was reported missing, he was just 21 years old. His body was never found and he is commemorated on the Hellas Memorial and remembered on Ilkley War Memorial.


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