Notes
The Bradford Grammar School website (see References) states: 'Irvin Waterhouse was born in Manningham, Bradford, in early October 1895, the second of three children. His parents were of humble origins. Robert Waterhouse was a drayman’s son from Bradford, and his brother and sister were mill hands. Robert was clerk to a wool merchant, who became his
manager, and then went into business on his own account. By 1911, he lived in Heaton, and later in Shipley Fields, signs of his prosperity. His wife Anne (or Annie) Wells Preston from Goole in East Yorkshire, was the daughter of a boiler-maker who moved to Bradford. Before she married she was a weaver. Their eldest child John was apprenticed to his father and inherited the family company, which seems to have survived into the late twentieth century.
Irvin started at Bradford Grammar School in 1906 just before his eleventh birthday, and was a pupil there until he was nearly sixteen. He had an aptitude for languages, doing well in Latin, Greek and French, and also Maths. When he left the School in 1911 what he did is not known. It is possible he joined his father and brother in business, however his occupation when he enlisted was vaguely stated as ‘motor driver’. When war began Irvin was a few weeks short of nineteen and he was not an early volunteer. He presented himself to the Recruiting Office in Bradford at the start of October 1915, the day before he was twenty. As a qualified driver he was immediately sent to the Motor Transport depot of the Army Service Corps at Grove Park in southeast London. His medical inspection showed him to be a portly young man, over 5’ 9” in height, but with a 45 inch chest. On 19th January 1916, once his
basic training was complete, Preston was appointed a Second Lieutenant on probation. He was posted to the 10th Battalion West Yorkshire Regiment, and he landed in France on 20th July 1916.
On the disastrous 1st July, no unit in the British Army suffered heavier losses than the 10/West Yorkshires, 710 officers and men; a week later the battalion comprised 211 men, a fifth of its full strength. When Preston joined them in late July the battalion was in process of reconstruction with drafts of officers and other ranks. As early as 3rd August the officers visited the scene of their disastrous action a month earlier and the battalion was due to practise how best they ought to have attacked in the light of experience. They undertook a great deal of training—bayonet fighting featured prominently—as well as spells in the front line in a quiet sector at Hebuterne.
In late October the 10/West Yorkshires were sent to the front line north of Lesboeufs. The Somme battlefield was a featureless landscape of shell craters. October had been wet, the rudimentary trenches were two feet deep in liquid mud and Trench foot was a
serious problem. German snipers were active, and it was difficult to move rations to the line. On 8th October, Irvin Waterhouse was leading a ration party to his men at the front when a
German sniper shot him. He had just passed the age of twenty one. In the conditions there
was no prospect of recovering his body. His name is on the Thiepval Memorial to the
Missing.'