Born: 1891
Died: 7 June 1916
Buried: Reninghelst New Military Cemetery
Address: 6 Park Road, Thackley
Parents: John & Sarah Ann
Spouse:
Siblings: Emily
Occupation: James Harper & Sons, Ravenscliffe Mills
Organisations/clubs: Idle Primitive Methodist Sunday School; Thackley FC
Military
Rank: Pte
Medals/awards:
Rolls of Honour: Holy Trinity, Idle.
Children:
Regiment: Northumberland Fusiliers
John William Ingham
Although the Commonwealth War
Graves records give John as the son
of John and Sarah Ingham, his father
appears to have died around the time
of his birth in 1891. That year’s
census gives John as five months old
and his mother as a widow.
John and his older sister Emily were
still living with their mother in their
four-roomed house in Park Road,
Thackley 20 years later by which
time John was working as a
woolcomber.
On 16 June 1916, the Shipley Times
& Express included a letter sent to
Sarah from one of John’s comrades
in France. It read: “It is with deep
regret that I am writing you these
few lines. Little did I
think when I was
writing you my last
letter that the next one
would be to convey
such news as this.
“I feel it very hard to
break the news to you
but Jack was killed on
Wednesday night
between 4 and 7
o’clock by a sniper. He
never spoke after being
hit.
“I had just cut him a slice of bread
and butter as we were about to
have tea. When I went to call to
him, a young man who was close
by told me he had been
killed. To tell you the
truth, I could not realise
it, but was only too
true.”
Private Ingham had
been in the Army about
six months and been in
France since Easter.
The following month,
the newspaper noted:
“A service was held on
Sunday evening at the
Idle Primitive
Methodist Chapel in memory of the
late Sgt Bateson Whitfield, Pte
Ernest Holdsworth, Pte John
Ingham and Mr J Simpson.
“Mr Fenton preached from the text
‘We are encompassed about by a
cloud of witnesses.’
“At the close of the sermon the
preacher made appropriate reference
to those who had passed away.
“The choir impressively rendered the
anthem ‘What are these?’ and
‘Saviour again to Thy dear name.’
The organist, Mr L Downes, played
the ‘Dead March’ and ‘I rest in the
Lord.’
There were many relatives and
friends of the deceased in the
congregation.
