The Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC) website confirms that 117193 Private John Keeton of the 10th Battalion Sherwood Foresters (the Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire Regiment) was the: “son of Joseph and Martha Keeton, of The Old Hall, Pilsley, Chesterfield, Derbyshire”. Joseph Keeton (born Pilsley in 1858) wed Martha nee Butler (born South Normanton near Alfreton Derbyshire in 1859) at Chesterfield Register Office in 1894. Their son John was born in Pilsley in 1896.
The 1911 census found the 14-year-old John Keeton with his family at 49 Rupert Street, Pilsley. As of then, Joseph, his father (aged 53), was a Coal Miner Hewer Below Ground and John himself a Coal Miner Below Ground.
A few pages of John Keeton’s service records have survived. They show that he enlisted at Clay Cross, Derbyshire on 12 December 1915 giving his age as 19 years and 1 month, his occupation as Coal Miner, his religion as Church of England, his father as his next of kin, and his home address as 49 Rupert Street, Pilsley.
Perhaps because of the value to the country’s war effort of his being a coal miner, John was initially posted to the Army Reserve. He was mobilised on 8 May 1918, some two-and-a-half years after he had volunteered. His medical at this later time confirmed he was 5 feet 8.5 inches tall, with a 37 inch chest having a 2 inch expansion range.
On 11 May 1918, John Keeton was posted to the 3rd (Reserve) Battalion Sherwood Foresters, on 6 September he was transferred to the 1st Battalion, and to the 10th Battalion on 9 September 1918.
Nine days later, on On 18 September 1918, he was killed in action, aged 21.
The CWGC confirms that John Keeton’s name is listed on the Vis-en-Artois Memorial, “Vis-en-Artois [being a village] on the straight main road from Arras to Cambrai about 10 kilometres south-east of Arras” in the Pas de Calais Region of France. And adds that: “This Memorial bears the names of over 9,000 men who fell in the period from 8 August 1918 to the date of the Armistice in the Advance to Victory in Picardy and Artois, between the Somme and Loos, and who have no known grave.”
John Keeton is also commemorated on a memorial plaque mounted within the lychgate at the Church of St Mary the Virgin, Pilsley, near Chesterfield, Derbyshire.
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