Wednesday 22 June 2016

Looking for more British Home Children in Southern Cemetery

Now here is a mystery to which at present I don’t have answer.  I had gone looking foe more British Home Children amongst the men of the Canadian Expeditionary Force buried in Southern Cemetery.

It is on going project in advance of Canada Day.

And I thought I might have found a third when I found a reference to Manchester as the place of birth of John Wiliam Ingham of the 46th Battalion.

He was wounded at Vimy Ridge in the May of 1917 and was buried in Southern Cemetery in south Manchester.

Private Ingham had enlisted on April 27 1916 in Yorkton Saskatchewan giving his occupation as a dairyman and he was 43 years of age.

What is slightly odd is that he died in Sheffield on the other side of the Pennines and was buried here in Manchester which is 71 kilometres way.

The explanation is simple enough, his wife, Mrs Ann Ingham was living at 5 Glebe Street off Stockport Road in the Longsight area of Manchester.

But that just begs another question which is why would he be in Canada and she over here?  I could understand how a much younger man might leave to start a new life and then send for his family when he was settled, but Mr Ingham was no spring chicken.

I know that in 1901 he was in Manchester with his wife and daughter and was a “milk dealer and chop keeper” running his own business and that they were married in or around 1899.

This would fit because their eldest daughter Annie was eleven in 1911.

So instead I shall leave it at that.

Someone from Canada will be able to access the shipping records and census returns which might shed light on the story.

In the meantime he is the third of those of the CEF buried in Southern Cemetery I have researched two of whom were British Home Children.

The aim will be to uncover something about each of the 31 in advance of July 1 and the special Remembrance service to which the High Commissioner for Canada will be in attendance.

Location; Southern Cemetery

Picture; pictures of Southern Cemetery from the collection of Andrew Simpson

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