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WORLD WAR ONE

The Men Who Died

WORLD WAR ONE

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Lance Corporal Harold John Gibble

10th Battalion, Kings Royal Rifle Corps, service no.

A/201705

Died of wounds, 14th August 1917, aged 23

Harlebeke New British Cemetery. Grave ref. XI.B.I

Harold John Gibble was the son of William and Minnie Gibble and born in Talgarth in 1899. John William Gibble, his father married three times. He was born in Tewkesbury and married Sarah Ann Clements in 1870. They had three children Ernest born 1873, Elizabeth born 1875 and Florence born 1878, Sarah died in 1896.

In 1897 John William married Minnie Freebury in Hay and they were living with 2-year-old Harold at High Cliff, Church St., Talgarth in 1901. Minnie died and in 1902 John Williams married Harriet Agnes Morgan in Newbridge on Wye.

In 1911 John William, Harriet and Harold age 12, were living in Elms Cottage, 11, Struet, Brecon. Harold later worked in the Brecon and Radnor Express printing works. His father, John died aged 71 in 1919.

Harold enlisted in Canning Town Essex. He was a prisoner of war in Germany when he died of wounds received in action.

Army records show Harold as 23 years old at the time of his death although he cannot have been more than 18 years, indicating he may have lied about his age on enlistment.

Lt Colonel Franklin Macaulay Gillespie

South Wales Borderers 4th Battalion

Killed in action August 9th, 1915 in Gallipoli, Turkey

Buried in Gallipoli, Canakkale, Turkey. Commemorated on

the Helles Memorial

Whilst not a Brecon man, Colonel Gillespie had connections with both the South Wales Borderers and mid Wales and is on the town

memorial.

Frank was born in 1872 in Colchester, Essex, a son to Lt Colonel Franklin Gillespie and his

wife Harriet (nee Freeth), of Bromley, Camberley, Surrey.

In 1891, he is shown as a lodger in Colchester when he attended Cadet College at Sandhurst

with his younger brother Alfred. Soon after this, he was gazetted to the South Wales Borderers. He saw service in West Africa and went through the Boer War. He had been mentioned in despatches and received the Queen's Medal with three clasps and the King’s Medal with two clasps.

Frank became adjutant to the 5th South Wales Borderers based at Newtown and was married in 1905 to Agnes Rose Pryce-Jones in Newtown, Montgomeryshire.