KENDRICK, John Henry

John Kendrick was the son of Mary Kirkham, formerly Kendrick, of 78 Dudley Street, Round Oak, Brierley Hill, and the late Jabizas Kendrick. He volunteered for the South Staffords and probably served as a Territorial. He was transferred at some point to the 14th (Service) Battalion of the Hampshire Regiment which went to the Western Front in May 1916 with the 39th Division. They fought on the Somme from the Thiepval ridge to the Ancre and in 1917 in the Third Battle of the Ypres from the Pilkem Ridge to Passchendaele. In 1918 they faced the first German Spring offensive in March and then the second which started on the Lys on the 9th April. They fought from Wytschaete to Kemmel but in the last stages Corporal John Kendrick was seriously wounded and taken to a military hospital at Boulogne where he died on the 9th May. He was 21 years of age and is buried in Boulogne Eastern Cemetery (IX B 63) and commemorated on the Brierley Hill and Brierley Hill church Memorials.