Captain Thomas Ernest Dufty
5th Battalion Yorkshire Regiment
Captain Dufty was born in on the 30th of June 1880. His father was Arthur Richard Sykes Dufty and his mother was called Katie. He was educated at Pocklington Grammar School.
He joined the 5th Battalion in 1912 and became a lieutenant in June 1913. Prior to this his profession was as a banker and manager of the Bridlington branch of the London Joint Stock Bank.
Dufty was promoted to Captain on the 18th of April 1915.
He was reported as killed in action on or about the 19th of May 1915 (killed by a shell). His Battalion had been deployed to Sanctuary Wood (1.9 miles east of Ypres).
He left a widow, Beatrice, and a 4-year-old son Arthur Richard.
He is buried at the Vlamertinghe Military Cemetery in Belgium and commemorated at the Manor Road Cemetery Scarborough.
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2nd Lieutenant Richard Birkenhead Wilton
Richard Birkenhead Wilton was the son of Charles and Elen Wilton of Stafford. After the outbreak of war Richard joined the 15th (Reserve) Battalion of the Yorkshire Regiment which had 12 officers and 750 non-commissioned officers and men. The battalion moved from Skipton to Rugeley in Staffordshire. In January 1916 Richard is listed as a temporary Second Lieutenant in the Reserve battalion. November 1916 sees him transfered at that rank to the 9th battalion. The Green Howards Gazette records that Richard was Killed in action on 1st October 1917. On the night of 30th September the 9th battalion took over from the 8th battalion in the line where the war diary states “Very heavy barrage put up by enemy from 4.30am; ‘C’ Coy on our left attacked; heavy casualties feared. Communication between HQs and Coys very difficult” His death is recorded on the Tyne Cot Memorial in Belgium.
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Edoardo Giovanoli
Information submitted by John Holdsworth. Edoardo Giovanoli was born in Samedan, Switzerland in April 1889, but by around 1907 he had moved to Filey in Yorkshire to work with a relative to learn the art of confectionery. Following the outbreak of the First World War, Edoardo decided to become a Naturalised British Citizen, which would allow him to fight for his adopted country. He joined the 5th Battalion, the Yorkshire Regiment as 3072 Lance Corporal E Giovanoli in 1915. On 20th September Edoardo was wounded while in the trenches outside of Armentieres, receiving gunshot wounds to the left arm and the neck. After hospitalisation and convalescence (during which time he met his newly born daughter, Dorothy) Edoardo returned to the front in 1916, attaining the rank of Corporal some time after this. Having spent most of the war in Belgium and France, it seems that Edoardo may have been used as an interpreter during the latter part of the conflict on the Italian-Austrian Front. Following the war the family moved to Bradford, and Edoardo worked as a Master Baker for Clark’s High Class Confectioners on North Parade. He became ill in 1927 and was admitted to St Luke’s Hospital. He died on 13th August and his death certificate records that the war wounds sustained 12 years earlier were the cause of his death. …
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2nd Lt J S Purvis
Canon John Purvis OBE (1890-1968) Canon John Purvis was an extremely talented artist and photographer. He is best remembered however for his historical and literary achievements. His translation of the original York Mystery Plays into modern English were central to their revival during the Festival of Britain in 1951. This work, along with his initiation of the Borthwick Institute for Archives in York, lead to his OBE in 1958. Purvis was born in Bridlington 1890. After studying at Cambridge University he worked at Cranleigh School as a history teacher, a role to which he would return after the First World War. He enlisted with the Yorkshire Regiment, serving with the 5th Battalion from early 1916. Purvis was wounded during the Battle of the Somme on the first occasion he went ‘over the top’. On that day, 15th September 1916, he had recorded history’s first tank attack in pen and ink in the early light of dawn. Two well known war poems, ‘High Wood’ and ‘Chance Memory’, originally published under the pseudonym Philip Johns(t)one are now known to have been written by Purvis.