Page 3 - Leighton News November 2018
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Last November 2017, Bridget Hill emailed us this account
of her researches into the lives lost from the Honourable
Artillery Company including her own grandfather buried
at Leighton Church. The piece was too late for last year’s
remembrance features but now very appropriate in this
centenary year of the end of the Great War
I went to Holy Trinity Church in Leighton recently as
part of a project I am working on to research all the
men of the Honourable Artillery Company who lost
their lives as a result of the Great War. My
grandfather served with the regiment and was
wounded in November 1916. Whilst at the church I
picked up a copy of The Leighton News and thought
perhaps your readers might be interested in the
following:
John Hugh Elton was born on 27th April 1893 in armistice, Elton was granted 14 days leave. He
Leighton, Welshpool, Wales. He was the only son returned to England but was taken ill with influenza
and the eldest of two children of John Elton, a farmer, and subsequently died of pneumonia in hospital on
and Jane Elton. Elton’s father died in 1906 when 29th November 1918 aged 25. He was buried in
Elton was only thirteen years old. Leighton Churchyard on 2nd December.
Elton was admitted in to the HAC on 18th August It would appear that John Hugh was known as Hugh,
1915 with the rank of Private. After training in presumably to distinguish him from his father, John.
England, he arrived in France on 8th January 1916
and joined the 1st Battalion in the field on 21st Garden of Remembrance
January 1916. In November that year he was (Eleventh of November)
admitted into hospital suffering from dermatitis and
boils. He was treated in Etaples and Havre, France Once every year,
before rejoining the Battalion in the field in January The little crosses, row on row,
1917. On 18th March 1917 he was appointed to the Like early snowdrops seem to grow.
rank of Lance Corporal (unpaid). And from the shadowy gloom
Of an Unknown Warrior's tomb,
On 18th April 1917, Elton was wounded in the right Come strangely unpoetic lays
thigh and left hand. He was transferred through the Of our dead yesterdays.
casualty clearing system and was admitted into "It's a long way to Tipperary
hospital in Leeds on 25th April 1917. Elton was It's a long way to go..."
treated there until being transferred to a military And once again we hear the beat
hospital in Beaulieu, Hampshire on 8th May 1917. Of those unconquerable feet.
He was discharged from hospital in July 1917 and As down the road that leads to Journeys End,
transferred to the Reserve Battalion at the Tower of Singing of Tipperary or a lady friend.
London. Come unknown poets and a tattered flag.
And left behind, an old kit bag.
Elton returned to the Western Front on 15th
November 1917, reverting to the rank of Private on Patrick Poole
embarkation. He was granted the substantive rank of
Lance Corporal thirteen days later.
On 20th November 1918, nine days after the
Last November 2017, Bridget Hill emailed us this account
of her researches into the lives lost from the Honourable
Artillery Company including her own grandfather buried
at Leighton Church. The piece was too late for last year’s
remembrance features but now very appropriate in this
centenary year of the end of the Great War
I went to Holy Trinity Church in Leighton recently as
part of a project I am working on to research all the
men of the Honourable Artillery Company who lost
their lives as a result of the Great War. My
grandfather served with the regiment and was
wounded in November 1916. Whilst at the church I
picked up a copy of The Leighton News and thought
perhaps your readers might be interested in the
following:
John Hugh Elton was born on 27th April 1893 in armistice, Elton was granted 14 days leave. He
Leighton, Welshpool, Wales. He was the only son returned to England but was taken ill with influenza
and the eldest of two children of John Elton, a farmer, and subsequently died of pneumonia in hospital on
and Jane Elton. Elton’s father died in 1906 when 29th November 1918 aged 25. He was buried in
Elton was only thirteen years old. Leighton Churchyard on 2nd December.
Elton was admitted in to the HAC on 18th August It would appear that John Hugh was known as Hugh,
1915 with the rank of Private. After training in presumably to distinguish him from his father, John.
England, he arrived in France on 8th January 1916
and joined the 1st Battalion in the field on 21st Garden of Remembrance
January 1916. In November that year he was (Eleventh of November)
admitted into hospital suffering from dermatitis and
boils. He was treated in Etaples and Havre, France Once every year,
before rejoining the Battalion in the field in January The little crosses, row on row,
1917. On 18th March 1917 he was appointed to the Like early snowdrops seem to grow.
rank of Lance Corporal (unpaid). And from the shadowy gloom
Of an Unknown Warrior's tomb,
On 18th April 1917, Elton was wounded in the right Come strangely unpoetic lays
thigh and left hand. He was transferred through the Of our dead yesterdays.
casualty clearing system and was admitted into "It's a long way to Tipperary
hospital in Leeds on 25th April 1917. Elton was It's a long way to go..."
treated there until being transferred to a military And once again we hear the beat
hospital in Beaulieu, Hampshire on 8th May 1917. Of those unconquerable feet.
He was discharged from hospital in July 1917 and As down the road that leads to Journeys End,
transferred to the Reserve Battalion at the Tower of Singing of Tipperary or a lady friend.
London. Come unknown poets and a tattered flag.
And left behind, an old kit bag.
Elton returned to the Western Front on 15th
November 1917, reverting to the rank of Private on Patrick Poole
embarkation. He was granted the substantive rank of
Lance Corporal thirteen days later.
On 20th November 1918, nine days after the
