The following appeared in the ‘Derbyshire Courier’ of 28 April 1917 under the above headline: “News was received on Friday morning by Mrs Hardy of High Street, Staveley, that her son Harold had died of wounds in France on Good Friday*. A letter from a stretcher-bearer who went out after an attack stated that he found Hardy on the battlefield badly wounded, but before he could reach the dressing station he succumbed to his wounds. The deceased, who was 19 years of age, had a bright future before him. He was receiving private tuition in metallurgy in order to receive a matriculation for Sheffield University. He was secretary to the Staveley Wesleyan Sunday School. He enlisted last October and had been in France only about five weeks.” [*In 1917 Good Friday actually fell on 6 April. Harold Hardy died the day after].

His Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC) entry confirms that 307427 Private Harold Hardy of the 2nd/8th Battalion Sherwood Foresters (the Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire Regiment) was the: “son of W. and Mary Hardy, of 27, High St., Staveley, Chesterfield.”

Harold Hardy was born in Staveley, near Chesterfield, Derbyshire in 1897 to William Hardy (born Barton under Needwood, near Burton upon Trent, Staffordshire 1856) and Mary Hardy nee Peabody (born Staveley 1862). William and Mary had married at the Wesleyan Chapel, on Saltergate, Chesterfield in 1885.

The 1911 census found the 13-year-old Harold at home with his parents and siblings at 27 High Street, Staveley and confirms that his father was in business as a Butcher. Harold’s siblings (all Staveley born) were: Florence (born 1886); William (1888); Arthur (1890); Walter (1893); Frank (1894); Annie (1896); Stanley (1899); and Jessie (a girl) (1900).

Harold Hardy’s service records have not survived. But the publication ‘Soldiers Died in the Great War 1914-1919’ confirms that he enlisted at Staveley confirming Staveley as his birthplace.

CWGC records that Harold Hardy died aged 19 on 7 April 1917 and that his name is engraved on the Thiepval Memorial for the missing presumed dead of the Somme region of France.