Notes
The Roll lists his address as 118 Rogers Street. It also includes his brother Joseph.
(Harold Frederick Stead's birth was registered in Peterborough District in 1892. On the 1911 census he was living with his parents at 91 White's Row, St John's Street, Peterborough.
Harold's Army pension file records that he was born in Peterborough on 29/9/1892 and was aged 21 when he enlisted on 9/11/1914 as a Private in the Northamptonshire Regiment, stating his next of kin to be Maria & William Frederick Stead of 118 Rogers Street, Peterborough. He was assigned the regimental number 16325, and was posted to the 3rd Battalion on 12/11/1914.
Having served only in the UK, on 23/7/1915 Harold was honourably discharged from the Army, being unfit for military service due to "V.D.H Mitral", i.e. mitral valvular disease of the heart, the onset of which was recorded in his Army pension file as having been "about April 1915" at Weymouth.
On 31/7/1915 Harold underwent an Army Medical Board, which recorded that he had never previously suffered heart problems, but had had influenza in the early part of 1914. The doctor wrote that, in his opinion, the heart condition from which Harold was suffering was "probably due to some affliction prior to enlistment, not caused by military service", and specified that "The disability is not the result of any military service".
Harold Stead's death certificate records that he died at Peterborough Infirmary on 13/9/1916 due to "Cardiac Dilation, Soldier's Heart" with a secondary cause of pulmonary tuberculosis; his death was registered by his mother Maria Stead of 118 Rogers Street, Peterborough. Harold was buried in Broadway Cemetery in Peterborough.
(Harold Frederick Stead is not recorded in the casualty registers of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission. As it was a moot case, in 2015 a submission was made to CWGC, to consider whether he was suitable to be added to their registers. They duly forwarded the documents to the National Army Museum for adjudication. Having considered all the evidence, NAM decided that Harold's death was not attributable to his military service, and that he therefore does not meet the requirements to be commemorated by CWGC. Harold had no recorded health problem at the time he enlisted, and was serving in the Army when his symptoms first appeared, and his death certificate proves that he died from the heart condition that had caused him to be discharged from the Army. However, as the Army doctor who had examined Harold in July 1915 had specifically stated that his heart condition was "not the result of any military service", his death cannot be deemed to be military-related either. The National Army Museum reference for this decision, dated 24/6/2015, is WGA 490). JK