In Memory of

Private Richard Harrison

19421
6th Battalion South Lancashire Regiment
Killed In Action 25th February 1917 Age 34

Richard was the son of Mr. and Mrs. Harrison of 92, Regent Street, Earlestown. He lived with his wife and four children at Wood Street, though an In Memoriam published in February 1919 gives his wife and children’s address as 14, Crown Street.

According to the obituary published in the Newton and Earlestown Guardian on March 23rd 1917, Richard worked for several years with the Sankey Sugar Co. but previous to joining up was at the Viaduct Works.

He had put in a period of about twelve months at Thornton Camp, Great Crosby, and was then drafted to Mesopotamia, where he saw nine month’s service.

Like Albert Taylor, Alfred Hughes and Charles Zorn, Richard’s name is on the Basra Memorial in Iraq which bears the name of more than forty thousand members of the Commonwealth forces who died in the operations in Mesopotamia from the autumn of 1914 to the end of August 1921 and whose graves are not known.

Whalley-Kelly gives an account in “Ich Dien” of the fighting on February 25th 1917, when Private John Readitt won the Victoria Cross.