Lieutenant, Royal Air Force.
Died 1st September 1918.
Remembered on the Hollybrook Memorial, Southampton. uk
Former student of The Tech.
Joseph was born on 2nd August 1889 to Joseph, a manager of a lithographic works, and Sarah Elizabeth Whitehead. In 1906-07 he registered onto a City & Guilds technological course and gave his occupation as a loom fitter employed by W. Smith and Bros., a loom makers, of Heywood. From 1909 to 1914 he was employed as an assistant manager for John Dickenson & Co. in Hertfordshire.
According to his obituary in the Manchester Guardian Joseph enlisted with the Royal Fusiliers in September 1914, but later transferred to the Naval Armoured Cars and was wounded at Suvla Bay, Gallipoli in 1915. He then joined the Royal Naval Air Service as an air mechanic, and was torpedoed in the North Sea in 1916. After serving some time as an aircraft armament instructor he became an observer and flew daily. He was based at RAF at Cattewater near Plymouth when on 1st September 1918 the sea plane he was in, a Short Admiralty Type 184, was forced to land in a heavy sea and he was presumed drowned. He left effects worth £600 to his father. He had a brother who was with the Guards in France.