“Photographs Found on the Battlefield” – 1293 Sapper Harry Adams, 1/2nd North Midland Field Company, Royal Engineers (Territorial Force)

On 4 November 1915, The Express and Star, published in Wolverhampton, printed several photographs that had been sent to the newspaper offices by soldiers of the 1/6^th Battalion, The South Staffordshire Regiment, who had found them during the fighting at the Hohenzollern Redoubt on 13 October 1915. One set, found by Private J. T. Lloyd, was identified by the family of the soldier to whom they had belonged, and their letters were reproduced two days later:

FROM THE BATTLEFIELD.

PORTRAITS OF MOTHER, SISTER AND SWEETHEART CLAIMED.

“Three more of the portraits found on the battlefield and reproduced in Thursday’s Express and Star have been claimed. They were photographs of the mother, sister and sweetheart of Sapper Harry Adams, of Heath Hayes, Cannock, and his mother, Mrs S. E. Adams, has written to us, as also has the Rev. J. B. Pimblett, of Norton Canes Rectory.

Writing from Cleeton-street, Heath Hayes, Mrs Adams says:-

“The photos found by Private J. T. Lloyd, 1/6 South Staffordshire Regiment, belonged to my son, aged 20. He had been in France since February 15^th (sic) last, and was killed in action on October 13^th. I had a notification through the War Office on Wednesday. The photos were sent to him three months ago (mother, sister and the young lady he was engaged to). He had been in the Territorials four years, and was a sapper in the Royal Engineers.”

The Rev. J. B. Pimblett writes:-

“I notice in your paper (of which I have been a constant reader since my curacy of Heath Town, 1895), a photo of a lady and girl standing up behind her. They are Mrs and Miss Gertrude Adams, of Cleeton-street, Heath Hayes. Mrs Adams is the widow of the late Police-constable Adams, of Norton Canes, who met his death so tragically last year, being knocked over by a cyclist and sustaining concussion of the brain. He died in Wolverhampton Hospital on December 27 1914. The son is Harry Adams, of the 2^nd North Midland Field Company (T.F.). He was a bright, strapping, steady young fellow, and his loss has grieved all his many friends in Norton. He died as he lived – a brave and gallant lad.”

1293 Sapper Harry Adams, who served with 1/2^nd North Midland Field Company, Royal Engineers, was born at Norton Canes and had worked at the Conduit Colliery in the village before the war. Embodied at the outbreak of the war, he was a Driver with the company’s transport section when he was kicked in the head by a horse that had recently been requisitioned while in the stables at Norton Hall. Treated for his injury by Dr Eden, Harry recovered and returned to the Company as a Sapper. He was killed on 13 October 1915 during 46^th Division’s attack on the Hohenzollern Redoubt and Fosse 8 and is commemorated on the Loos Memorial. Harry is also remembered on the war memorials inside St James the Great Parish Church at Norton Canes, on the memorial plaque from the former British Legion Club held at the Trinity Methodist Church, and on the Roll of Honour to the former pupils of Norton Canes Boy’s School.