PRIVATE HARRY PEARCE: 10183
6th. Battalion Dorsetshire Regiment.
Harry has been a difficult man to track down.
He is cited in Rowson’s ‘Bridport and the Great War’ as being a Prisoner of War in Germany, dying there in captivity but there are no records to confirm this.
There is a Private Harry Pearce, recorded as a member of the 6th Dorsetshire Regiment, but there are no records which directly connect him with Bridport. But his name is on the Bridport War Memorial and so we can only suppose that in the years between the 1911 census and the outbreak of war, Harry and his family moved into the town.
Harry was born in Axminster in a house next door to the railway station. His parents were John and Sarah and he had two younger brothers, Albert and John.
Harry, aged seventeen was on the move. In 1901 he was lodging with the Doyle family in Birkenhead, Cheshire, training as an apprentice engine maker, but he later returned to Lyme Regis in Dorset. By 1911 he had met, and married Eveline and they had three small children, William Henry, Walter and George – later to be joined by Ivy and Florence. His father had been widowed and was living with Harry’s family, earning a living as a jobbing gardener.
After the outbreak of war, Harry joined the 6th. Battalion, Dorsetshire Regiment and served with them in France and Flanders. He fought in the battles around Amiens in France during the German Spring Offensive against the Allies in 1918. These encounters took place on the previously fought over battlefields of the Somme.
Harry was to lose his life there in March 1918. His body was never recovered, and he was presumed dead. His effects were sent to his widow Eveline.
Harry is commemorated on the Arras Memorial, Pas de Calais.