SERGEANT HARRY WOODNOTH
AUSTRALIAN INFANTRY
1ST AUGUST 1918 AGE 29
BURIED: ADELAIDE CEMETERY VILLERS BRETONNEUX, FRANCE
Harry Woodnoth was his parents only child, as you can gather from his inscription. His father, Frank, was a boot repairer in Wolverhampton and Harry was a labourer when he went to Australia in 1911 aged 22. He appears to have been back in England in January 1915 when he enlisted in the Australian Infantry.
Woodnoth served in Gallipoli from where he was evacuated with the rest of the Mediterranean Expeditionary Force on 1 January 1916. He served with the 21st Battalion Australian Infantry, which joined the BEF in France on 26 March 1916. On 2 August that year, Woodnoth was severely wounded in the face, neck and right arm. Hospitalised in England, he returned to the front that November.
He died on 1 August 1918, the words on his record card read - 'wounded in action gassed'.
His mother, Elizabeth, signed for his inscription. She died in Wolverhampton in 1949 and her husband the following year.