HAROLD JOHN HILTON BEVAN
25 July 1899 - 20 October 1918
At School 1911 - 1916
Pte 65519 13th Welsh Regt
Harold was born in Stalybridge, Cheshire and in 1901, aged 1, was living at 223 Mottram Road, Stalybridge, with father William, an Oil Merchants Agent, mother Emily and elder sister Lucy. By 1911 the family had moved to 12 Clifton Road, Chorlton cum Hardy and Harold was attending School.
Harold's Service Records survive and show that he enlisted in Manchester on 23rd July 1917 just two days before his eighteenth birthday. His medical examination took place on 27 August 1917 in which he was described as 5 ft 7½ inches tall, weighing 8 stone 7 lbs with a 33 inch chest and moderate physical development.

On his attestation form his trade or calling was stated as "schoolboy" but by his medical he had graduated to ""clerk". On 24th August he was mobilised and posted to the 48th Training Reserve Bn at Prees Heath, near Whitchurch,Shropshire. On 8th December 1917 he was transferred to the 53rd Young Soldiers Bn, The Welsh Regt and granted leave from 14th December to 18th December. Following his return, on 31 December he was posted to the 51st Graduated Bn Training Reserve, Welsh Regiment, based in Yarmouth. On 20th March 1918 he was granted "Draft Leave" but was recalled on 29th March following the massed German offensives on the Western Front. Harold embarked at Southampton on 5th April landing at Le Havre the following day. He was posted to B Company, 13th Bn Welch Regiment, 114th Brigade, 38th (Welsh Division), and left for the Front on 14th April arriving "in the field" on the 16th. The Bn was in Brigade Reserve near Albert, having recently moved from the Armentieres area. The 16th was by coincidence the day that the Battalion war diary reported that:

"The Cathedral tower of Albert with the leaning statue of the Virgin was hit by our Artillery fire and fell at 3.30 p.m."
Albert had been captured by the Germans in the Spring 1918 offensives and it was rumoured that whoever brought down the statue would win the war, or lose it depending on whether you believed the Allied or German version, but in any event it would signal the end of the war. The Germans had positioned a machine gun in the tower, which was causing heavy casualties amongst the front line troops and the Artillery was requested to deal with it.
The German version proved correct, the Allies brought down the statue and won the war.




On 2nd September 1919 the War Office sent a memorandum to the Officer in charge of Infantry Records to the effect that any articles of personal property, belonging to Harold, coming into his possession should be despatched to his father, William.
On the 7th August 1920 Harold's personal effects were sent to his father: Diary, Letters, Religious Book, Pouch, Disc.
It remains somewhat of a mystery that Harold's property was forwarded nearly two years after he was killed and correspondence only commenced in September 1919. Was this discovered on the body of the soldier exhumed or had his belongings lain neglected in some army warehouse since his death? We will no doubt never know the truth.
