Peasants to Puddles
My Family History - By Nicky Rowberry

Joseph Samuel Higginson - Private L/13523

This page is dedicated to the memory of Joseph Samuel Higginson who died on 25th April 1915 at Gallipoli.

Joseph Samuel Higginson was born on 20th September 1890, the eldest son of Joseph Everard Higginson and Jane Chamberlain. He died on 25th April 1915 at Gallipoli, one of the many millions of men who lost their lives in World War 1. It seemed sad for him to have died and all but these bare facts remembered, so I've tried to find out at least a little about his life until his untimely death aged just 24.

Joseph's early life was spent first in Shoreditch and then in West Ham, where his father worked at a sawmill. Young Joseph seems to have chosen a career with the army as by the 1911 census, he had already enlisted with the Royal Fusiliers and was stationed in India.

The Commonwealth War Graves Commission website revealed that he was a private in the 2nd Battalion of the Royal Fusiliers Regiment that his service number was L/13523 and that he is commemorated at the Helles Memorial in Turkey. I can't reproduce the CWGC photo of the cemetery, but to see his page please click here

You can now look at the Medal Roll cards from the first world war online. These show a soldier's name, rank and what medals they were entitled to. Due to copyright issues, I don't think I can reproduce the image of the medal card, so instead I've transcribed it:

And on the back it says:

As is so often the case with these medal cards, not all of the information has been filled in, but it does indicate that he would have been entitled to three medals. The British Medal was awarded to servicemen who served in a theatre of war between 5th August 1914 and 11th November 1918. The Victory Medal (Allied Victory Medal) was awarded for service in any operational theatre over the same time frame. The 1914-1915 Star Medal was issued to all those who served in any theatre of war against Germany between August 1914 and 31st December 1915. Apparently these three war medals are known by the nicknames of Pip, Squeak and Wilfred! Many of the British Army World War One Service Records were destroyed when the War Office in London was bombed in 1940 and unfortunately Joseph's seem to have been among those lost. So I've got no further detail about Joseph's personal involvement in the war.

The Gallipoli campaign itself is of course well documented, so some insight can be gleaned into his final days. At the outbreak of WW1, the 2nd Battalion were stationed in India (since Joseph was already in the army at the outbreak of the war, it is reasonable to assume he too was in India). Within months though they were back in England and joined the 29th Division, training to go to France. By March 1915 orders arrived for them to head to Gallipoli, which they did via Malta and then Alexandria. The War Diaries for the 2nd Battalion Royal Fusiliers have just become available online. The War Diaries were kept as a daily record of operations, intelligence reports and anything else that was going on for a given battalion. I have transcribed the relevant diary for the month before the assault at Gallipoli to try and get an insight into Joseph's final days. This section of the diary starts with the regiment stationed at the MEX camp near Alexandria. They were then taken by boat to the island of Lemnos in the north Aegean Sea in readiness for the attack at Gallipoli. Unfortunately there does seem to be a gap in the diaries available online for the 22nd to 24th April - important days just before the attack. (I hope to be able to track down the missing pages on my next trip to the National Archives at Kew.) The diaries then describe in fair detail the landings and initial assaults against the Turks.

The diaries suggest that in the month leading up to the attack, the days were filled with practice drills and routine training. The men would probably not be used to beach landings or even rowing, so much practice went into these basics. We will probably never know for sure how poor Joseph died, but the diaries indicate heavy losses were suffered at the attempt to capture Hill 114 under heavy fire, so perhaps this was when Joseph was killed.

Gallipoli was a key strategic point between the Black Sea and the Aegean Sea. The 2nd Battalion sailed on HMS Implacable and were put ashore on what was known as "X" Beach at Gallipoli on 25th April 1915, with the battleship providing covering fire for them. X beach was one of 5 beaches on the peninsula landed by the allies that day. Although the beach itself was successfully taken, the overall Gallipoli Campaign was a failure and cost many allied lives, including of course Joseph Higginson's.

111 men of the 2nd Battalion Royal Fusiliers are listed as having died at Gallipoli on the same day as Joseph. Of these, at least 9 were listed with him in the 1911 census, suggesting that they would have been together for some time. I don't know at what point Joseph died, but he probably saw men he'd known and friends struck down around him, before he was hit too.

The Gallipoli or Dardanelles Campaign was of course widely reported in the newspapers of the time. The British probably played down the failure that the campaign ultimately was, in order to maintain morale. This article from a newspaper two days after Joseph's death gives an idea of how things were being reported. Image © Trinity Mirror. Image created courtesy of THE BRITISH LIBRARY BOARD. Image reproduced with kind permission of The British Newspaper Archive (www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk) Click: www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk to see the full newspaper page.

Families of soldiers who died in the war were issued with a memorial scroll to commemorate their sacrifice. The photos below show the memorial scroll (with a close up) for Joseph that has remained in the family to this day and was kindly shared with me by his niece Doreen.

The final documentation of Joseph's life is the Army Register of Soldier's Effects. These registers show what monies were owing to the soldier at the time of his death - in the case of Joseph it amounted to £10.14s.3d, plus the War Gratuity of £5. This money was allocated to his parents Joseph & Jane. By any standard it doesn't seem much for their son's life.

In researching Joseph's final days, several sites have been invaluable, so I've included links to some of them here.

The Commonwealth War Graves Commission is a great site to start with to give you the basic details you would need to then start digging deeper:

The National Archives at Kew now hold a huge number of records, many of which are available online, but it is well worth a visit down there if you can make it:

The British Newspaper Archive holds digitised images of newspapers from all over Britain. New pages are added weekly and it can be a great way of adding to your research:

If any of the above is of further interest, please feel free to contact me at: n.rowberry@btinternet.com

© Nicky Rowberry 2015

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Peasants to Puddles - My Family History. By Nicky Rowberry