Edwards,+Harri+Willis

Second Lieutenant, 1st/5th Bn., East Lancashire Regiment. Date of Death: 28th April 1917. THIEPVAL MEMORIAL, Pier and Face 6 C.
 * Harri Willis Edwards.**

Name: Harri Willis Edwards Died: 28 Apr 1917 Rank: 2/Lieutenant Regiment: East Lancashire Regiment Battalion: 5th Battalion (Territorial) Type of Casualty: Killed in action
 * SDGW information:**

Born in 1877 he was killed on 28-4-1917 aged 40 years. At time of death Harri was recorded as 2nd Lieutenant.

CWGC does not give a service number for him but the medals list states Service Number 16/85 with him listed first as a Sarjeant with the West Yorkshire Regiment then as a 2nt Lieutenant with the East Lancashire Regiment. ( Martha Heaton, local historian, refers to him as Captain Edwards so he may have been promoted in the field )

His name is recorded on the Thiepval Memorial on Pier and Face C. THIEPVAL is on the Somme and this memorial names some 72,000 missing officers and men of the British forces who died on the Somme Front and have no known grave.

Harri was born at Bishopsthorpe, York and the son of Irishman Harri and his wife Maria( nee Willis ). They married in Whitby in 1873. Harri Snr. was a Church of England Clergyman and for some time ( around 20 years ) was Vicar of Nelson- in -Marsden in Lancashire. Harri was brought up in Lancashire with his brother Douglas G. Edwards. Harri married Gertrude L. Bedingfield in Burnley in 1905. Harri Snr. died in Burnley in 1900 aged 52 years. In the 1901 census both Douglas and brother Harri were living in Nelson and both are bank clerks.

Harri and Gertrude had a son, Douglas Bedingfield Willis Edwards born in Keighley in summer 1907 but within a few months Gertrude was dead aged 28 years. Harri married again, in Bridlington in 1910. He lived with his second wife Ada (nee Cranswick ) and son Douglas at Old Oxenhope House.

After Harri was killed Ada married Eric Greenwood in Keighley in 1918.