18536 PRIVATE JAMES CONSTANCE
2ND BATTALION SUFFOLK REGIMENT
KILLED IN ACTION
2ND MARCH 1916
AGE 34 YEARS
Another of the Halesworth war dead who originally hailed from one of the local villages was James Constance who was born at Linstead Parva in the second quarter of 1882. He was the fifth child of John, a farm labourer, and Hannah (née Page). All of his early years were spent living in and around his village where, after completing his education, he followed his father into working the land. At that time, it was also common for some of the local farm hands, on completion of the planting and sowing the seeds for the season, to travel to nearby Lowestoft and find work on one of the many fishing boats operating from the port, returning back to their villages to harvest the crops at the end of the summer. In 1908 James married Florence Hurren from the neighbouring village of Linstead Magna. No doubt deciding on a more stable married life, within a year James had found regular employment as a maltster employed by Parry and Sons of Quay Street, Halesworth while living at 148 Chediston Street with their first child Arthur, born in May 1910.
Sometime after the outbreak of the war, the Halesworth Times reported on the 23rd February 1915 that James was one of a group of 8 local men who had volunteered to serve in the Suffolk Regiment. By this time he had three young sons and now the family were living at 23 London Road.
Over the following months James trained in the art of becoming a soldier, until almost six months from the date of his enlistment he crossed to France on the 24th August 1915 to join the 2nd Battalion, Suffolk Regiment to serve as a Private Soldier with the service number of 18536.
On Britain’s declaration of war on the 4th August 1914, the 2nd Suffolks, being a Regular Army Battalion, were stationed at the Curragh, a vast military training ground and garrison in County Kildare, Ireland. Within ten days the entire Battalion that numbered twenty-eight Officers and nine hundred and seventy-one other ranks had been mobilised and then transported to France joining the British Expeditionary Force. In days of landing they had pushed north over the Belgian border to meet the German forces marching on Paris. On 23rd August they experienced their first skirmish with the enemy, losing three soldiers killed from their battalion. Little did they realise at that time that these would be the first of many hundreds who would be killed, wounded or taken prisoner in what would become known as the Great War.
At the time of James joining the 2nd Suffolks they had been relieved from the front line and were at rest in a camp at Ouderdom, close to the Belgian/French border. Over the following seven months the battalion continued to move in and out of the
Firing line. Within a month of Jame’s arrival, they were involved in the fighting during the early days of the Battle of Loos that raged from the 25thSeptember to the 8th October 1915. Christmas Day 1915 was spent in trenches in the area of the Ypres-Comines canal, with each side indulging in its own meagre celebrations unmolested by the other. The new year brought much more of the same for the battalion with many harsh winter days both in and out of the firing line, many spent in the open. On the 1st March 1916, during the night prior to Jame’s death the 2nd Suffolks moved forward into the assembly trenches in preparation for a planned early morning attack on the German line. This was timed to commence at 4.30am. Now, for the first time, all Officers and men were equipped with the new steel helmet, where up to this point the main headdress worn by the majority of the British army consisted of a soft cloth cap or bonnet, but with the development of more and more sophisticated weapons such as airburst shells that would explode several feet above the trenches showering those below with red hot balls of metal, it was decided to develop head protection similar in design to those worn hundreds of years before by the English archers at the Battle of Agincourt.
The Suffolk Regiment history, published in 1928, records the actions of the 2nd March 1916 thus: “As our men rose from their trenches a tremendous roar of machine gun and rifle fire burst forth from the brigade on our right in support of the battalion’s advance. The attack was a complete success with the enemy driven back from their front line by 7am.”
As with all of these battles it came at a very heavy cost in flesh and blood. The 2nd Suffolks on that day suffered some two hundred and fifty casualties, which would have been almost half out of a total of five hundred taken into action, James being just one. Sadly, no identifiable remains could be found of James, as he is listed today on the Ypres (Menin Gate) memorial to the missing, his but one name in a total of fifty-four thousand, three hundred and ninety-five others.
The sad news of James’s death must have taken some time to reach his poor wife Florence, with his death finally being announced in the Halesworth Times newspaper of the 4th April 1916.
After her loss Florence would have continued to receive James’s soldier’s pay up until the 18th September 1916 when she was granted a war widow’s pension of £1.0s.6d (£1.2p) for her and the three children, all of which were under the age of seven years, with each child being admissible to be included up to the age of sixteen.
This pension was followed in July 1919 when she received the sum of £4.4s.0d (£4.20p) in war gratuity. She would also have received her husband’s medal entitlement of the 1915 Star trio, Memorial Plaque and Scroll.
These, minus the scroll, are now in the collection of the Halesworth and District Museum. (See below)
An original copy of a condolence card printed on behalf of his mother