John Henry SLEE Corporal 19459, 10 th Battalion, Yorkshire Regiment. Died 1 st July 1916. John Henry Slee was born in Howden-le-Wear in 1881, the family living in Valley Terrace. The Census of 1901 shows John working as an underground miner, and in 1911 he was a hewer in the mine, one of the best paid jobs. There are few specific details of his military service. He volunteered to join the army, and by October 1915 he was fighting in France. He was soon promoted to corporal. He was 34 years of age when he died along with thousands of other allied servicemen on the 1 st July 1916, the first day of the Battle of the Somme. His body was never found and he is remembered on the Thiepval Memorial which was erected to remember the Missing from the Somme battlefields. A brass tablet was placed in the Parish Church in Howden-le-Wear with the following inscription: Sacred to the memory of Corporal John Henry Slee who at the call of King and Country left all that was dear to him, endured hardness faced danger, and finally passed out of the sight of his men by the path of duty and self-sacrifice giving up his life at Fricourt July 1st 1916. That others might live in freedom This tablet is erected by his loving wife

RememberingOur Fallen

Howden-le-Wear History Society

Death notice of John Henry Slee. Image courtesy of the Auckland Chronicle, July 1916