John William's Story.
John Barber was born in 1889 at Rainow, he was the son of George William and Nancy Jane Barber of Buxton Stoops farm, it is not known when he moved to the Stockport area. Between April and June 1910, he married Ethel Wood and this marriage was registered in the town. They set up home with Ethel’s widowed mother Annie at 3 Berrycroft Lane, Bredbury, when the 1911 census was taken they had a son, Harold who is listed as 4 months old and John was working as a butcher.
His service number indicates he enlisted into the army in August 1914 and probably went overseas as part of the first drafts of replacements for the regular army soldiers who had already been killed or wounded in the first months of fighting.
He arrived he France on the 2nd January 1915, 18 days later the war diary mentions that 248 replacements arrived while the battalion were in reserve at Bailleul, it would be a fair assumption that John was among these. Four days later the battalion marched to Wulverghen and took over the trenches from the Kings Own Yorkshire Light Infantry.
On 20 May, the Battalion took over front line trenches at Dormy House, Zillebeke (2 kilometres south east of the centre of the Belgian town of Ypres (now Ieper). On the 24th, the Germans released poison gas but the wind blew it onto neighbouring units rather than the Cheshire’s. An attack was expected but it never materialised.
The Battalion’s War Diary for the 27th makes no reference to casualties, only describing it as a “quiet day”. John was probably killed by shellfire. If ever he had a marked grave, it’s location was lost during the course of the war and he is now commemorated on the Memorial to the Missing.
The probate on his will gave an address as 3, Berrycroft Lane; administrator was Harold Barber, hatter: 163.9s.1d
By the time the War Graves Commission was collating information in the early 1920s, it was noted that Ethel had also died.