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The Men Who Died

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Bernard was born in Brecon in 1896 the son of Samuel and Mary Pitt Bryant. At the time the family were living at 39, The Struet in Brecon. His father Samuel was born in London and married Mary Fury in October 1883 in St John the Evangelist Church, Brecon (now Brecon Cathedral). Mary was from Talyllyn near Brecon. John was a plasterer and they had four other children, Mary Ann born,1884/5, Roseanna (Rosie) 1889, Florence 1891 and Samuel 1893.

In 1901 Bernard was living in White Lion Terrace, near Bridge Street Brecon with his cousin, George Lodge, a garden labourer. Samuel, his father had died 1898 age 51 and Mary, his mother, died 1903.

By 1911 he was living in the Rhondda with his sister Mary, now married to John Manning, and her family and other relations. Bernard and the other men in the family were working as coal miners. Bernard was now fourteen.

On the 26th August 1914 he enlisted in the Army Special Reservists at Tonypandy joining the Shropshire Light Infantry 3rd Battalion.

Private Bernard Pitt Bryant

King’s Shropshire Light Infantry, 3rd Battalion, service no.

7079

Died on March 27th, 1918 at home, aged 27

Buried in Rhondda (Trealaw) Cemetery

He was posted to the 6th Battalion and embarked for service in France on 23 July, 1915 and in Boulogne suffered an accidental bayonet injury in the thigh, requiring a return to England. On his return to France the next month he was posted to the 7th Battalion. In 1917 he became an acting lance corporal and then a corporal but was subsequently returned back to a private.

In 1917 he was serving on the Somme and in that summer he contracted pneumonia and was sent back to England in the November. Back in England in the 1st Southern General Hospital in Birmingham he was diagnosed with pulmonary tuberculosis contracted due to exposure while on active service. His family had no history of TB. As a result, he was discharged on 17th November 1917 and issued with a Silver War Badge. He returned to live with his sister in Williamstown, Pen y Graig and died the following year.