2nd Lieutenant, 7th Battalion The Loyal North Lancashire Regiment.
Killed in action 23rd July 1916, age 26.
Buried in Caterpillar Valley Cemetery, France.
Former student of teaching.
Harold was born on 16th September 1889 at Brighouse to Ernest, a railway employee, and Mary Elizabeth Hoyle of Halifax. He was educated at St. Andrews, Brighouse, Rastrick Grammar School (on a County Scholarship) where he won at the headmaster’s gold medal. He got First Class Honours in the Cambridge Senior Local Examinations in 1907. He then gained an arts degree from Leeds University (under another County Scholarship). In 1912 he was awarded a Graduate Bursary and came to Manchester University to study for his teaching diploma which he got in 1913. He became an assistant master in English at Aldershot Secondary School.
In July 1915 Harold resigned from his job to join the Bristol University Officer Training Corps. Gazetted on 14th August 1915 to 11th Battalion Loyal North Lancashire Fusiliers he was attached to the 7th Battalion when he died in July 1916 during a bayonet charge on enemy trenches around Bazentin-le-Petit. He left effects worth £111 18s 8d to his father.