Notes
Recovered 27/06/2022 from www.greatwarforum.org/topic/80192-war-memorials-glos-staffs-cheshire-derby-other-counties/page/19
WILKINSON, Harry, Private, 19900, 9th West Yorkshire Regiment, killed in action 27th September 1916. Native of West Ayton. He is commemorated on the Thiepval Memorial, Somme, France.
Recovered 27/06/2022 from www.scarboroughsmaritimeheritage.org.uk/article.php?article=557
Another casualty of the fighting at Stuff Redoubt had been West Ayton born; 19900 Private Harry Wilkinson. The eldest son of Ayton’s blacksmith, Frederick, and Mary Wilkinson, Harry had been born in the village during 1898 and had worked with his father until his enlistment at the age of seventeen into the West Yorkshire Regiment at Scarborough during September 1914. Also an original member of the 9TH Battalion, Harry had also been a veteran of the Gallipoli campaign and his Battalion’s subsequent service in Egypt.
Like the other ‘missing’ Scarborough men, little had been heard by Harry’s parents regarding their son’s loss, and Fred Wilkinson had made numerous enquiries with the military authorities in an attempt to ascertain Harry’s fate, and had eventually received word of the young soldier’s probable death during November 1916. The Ayton section of the ‘District News‘ section of ‘The Scarborough Mercury’ of Friday the 17TH of November 1916 had duly reported;
‘Fallen---News from his officer was received this week to the effect that after speaking about the matter with his sergeant Major it must now be accepted that Pte. Harry Wilkinson has fallen. This communication was received by his sorrowing father, Mr. Wilkinson, Blacksmith, this week. We have previously announced that Pte. Wilkinson was missing. He joined the West Yorks shortly after the war broke out, when he was only seventeen years of age, and he had seen active service for many months, having been at Suvla Bay, and Egypt, and a short time ago with his regiment he was conveyed to France’