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Pte. John Partington Booth
British Army 8th Btn. King's Royal Rifle Corps
from:Heywood, Lancashire
(d.6th Nov 1915)
Jack Booth was my grandma's favourite younger brother. He was 20 when he enlisted in May 1915 with the 8th King's Royal Rifles and died of his wounds on 6th November at Ypres, later that same year.
I'm lucky in that I have a lot of information about him. My great grandmother and the eldest daughter traveled to Ypres to see his grave and brought back postcards and other souvenirs; a brass dogcart, an anvil formed from a shell casing. Probably the one and only time they traveled from their thoroughly working class home. The women of the family had gold pendants with his photo inside, so I grew up knowing what he looked like and the fact 'a trip' had been made.
His records also survived and I have copies of the correspondence with his mother about his effects - a wristwatch (broken), purse, pipe, knife, gospel, letters and photos, and her grateful reply 'hoping if they get anything else as there is a few more things'. I also have the Btn's war diary and know that the working party he was with was shelled returning from repairing trenches and he was hit by shrapnel. I know where the Field Ambulance Station was where he died, where he was initially buried (an OS reference) and his final resting place in the Hop Store Cemetery just west of Ypres. A silk mourning token also found its way to us through a local newspaper story.
RIP John Partington Booth. Gone but not forgotten.
