PRIVATE HARRY WRIGHT
THE QUEEN'S
30TH OCTOBER 1914 AGE 23
BURIED: YPRES TOWN CEMETERY EXTENSION, BELGIUM
Harry Wright was a regular soldier serving with the 2nd Battalion The Queen's Roal West Surrey Regiment. On the morning of 1 August 1914 the Battalion were taking part in manoeuvres in the South African veldt 110 miles from Pretoria when they were suddenly returned to camp and told to await further orders. News had reached them that France and Germany were about to go to war and they were to return to England immediately. On 27 August they set sail from Cape Town, reached England on 19 September and went into camp at Lyndhurst. Two weeks later they embarked from Southampton for Zeebrugge. They were being rushed over to help the Belgians defend Antwerp and to stem the German's race to the sea. Events overtook them and they spent the next three weeks marching, skirmishing, digging trenches and fighting. On 29 October they were ordered to hold the road from Gheluvelt to Kruiseecke and lost twelve men killed, sixty wounded and twenty missing in capturing a number of farms east of this road. The next day, the 30th, the Battalion came under very heavy shell and machine-gun fire. This was the day Harry Wright died of wounds but we don't know on which day he received them.
Harry's mother, Annie Wright, chose his inscription, encapsulating in a few a wistful words her regret for "the days that have been" .