Gunner Harry Tattersall
74370 Royal Field Artillery 9th Btty 41st Bde
Killed in action 18th October 1915, aged 20
Lived at 19 Merton Street
Buried in Cambrin Churchyard Extension., France F.29
Burnley Express 27th October1915
Commemorated on Elim Primitive Methodists Memorial

A SPLENDID SPIRIT.
Burnley Student’s sacrifice.
(Burnley Express 27/10/15)
A splendid spirit of sacrifice of personal ambition has been shown by Gunner H. Tattersall, of the 9th Battalion, Royal Field Artillery, who was killed in action in France on October 18th. The son of Mr & Mrs John Tattersall, of 11 Abinger Street, Burnley, he was 20 years of age, and was working as a weaver at Messrs West’s Rake Head Mill when war broke out. He enlisted on January 5th, and had been in France since August 29th. The news of his death, which came on Sunday, was conveyed in a letter from Captain G.L.Warren, who said; “I much regret to inform you that your son was killed to-day by a German Shell. He was drawing water near the trench at the moment. He has been with us only a short time, but was such a nice bright fellow. Please accept my sincere sympathy. He was buried this evening in a cemetery about 600 yards from where he was struck down. A Chaplain read the burial service.”
In the last letter his parents received, Gunner Tattersall said that he had just been removed from work on the communication lines and sent up to the firing area, being made an officer’s servant. This meant four day’s work with the guns and two days at an observation station. His great ambition in private life was to win a Royal scholarship, and in his work at the science classes at the Technical School was a most promising and diligent student. He had passed his preliminary examinations, which entitled him to sit for a scholarship, and he had great hopes, had he not enlisted, of being successful last session, but he felt that the call of the country, and he put aside his cherished ambition. He was connected with Elim Primitive Methodist Sunday School.