Information provided by Marion Moverley. Robert Thackwray Moverley was born on the 3rd March 1896 at Woodside Farm Sessay near Thirsk in North Yorkshire to Butler and Fanny Margaret Moverley. Robert’s father Butler was a farmer. The 1911 census shows a family of 5 children with Robert having brothers Edward and Harold, and sisters Dora Fanny and Florence Lotta. Robert worked as a railway clerk for the L.N.E.R. at Bennington Station and then at Boroughbridge. He would also work in the railway offices at York and Selby.
On the outbreak of war Robert enlisted as a Private with the Yorkshire Regiment and would rise through the ranks to Sergeant. Little information is available regarding his time in the Military, even in determining the Battalion he was with. We do know that in September 1916 he was at Mulgrave Castle Hospital near Whitby so he must have received wounds of some description while at the Front. Also, from October 1917 to April 1918 he was seconded as an Adjutant to the 51st Battalion Leicestershire Regiment. It would appear that this was a home based appointment. Letters of commendation from that period indicate he was a proficient and diligent soldier. On the 1st March 1919 he was transferred to the reserve on the completion of his service.
Robert married Mary Blunsom on the 5th May 1923. They would have two children, Joan Margaret and Alan. His wife Mary died in 1959. Robert remarried on the 5th May 1961 to Dulcie Elizabeth Frankish Found.
Robert died in 1975. At the time he was living at 3 Peaseholme Drive Scarborough. He was 79 years of age.
Robert Moverley is clearly indicated in this photograph of Mulgrave Castle
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Arnold Lupton Shaw
Researched by John Mills. Arnold was born on the 19th January 1896 in Harrogate Yorkshire. His Army career started with the 5th Lancers with which he went to France in August 1914. He was present at the Battles of the Aisne, Ypres, Somme 1916 and Arras 1917. He transferred to the Yorkshire Regiment on the 26th September 1917 and having gained a commission as a 2nd Lieutenant and joined the 2nd Battalion on the 18th January 1918. He was promoted Lieutenant 26th March 1919, Captain 16th November 1929, Major 1st August 1938 and Lieutenant Colonel 27th December 1943. He also served in Waziristan 1913-25 and with the Shanghai Defence Force 1930-31. Between 1933 and 1936 while serving in India he played 1st class cricket for the ‘Europeans’ team. During the Second World War he commanded the 1st Battalion, The Green Howards, 1941-43 and received a DSO on the 8th November 1943. He retired from the Army as Honorary Brigadier on the 30th December 1943. He had married Constance Smith on the 6th October 1917 when they were both just 21. On the 27th January 1949 they set sail from London on the P&O liner SS Matiana for a life in Kenya where Arnold joined the Nairobi police force. He was made Assistant Superintendant of Police on the 6th January 1950, becoming Senior Superintendant on the 1st January 1956. He was there during the early years of the Mau-Mau Rebellion. He died at Malton Yorkshire on the 13th November 1972.
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Albert Norris
265990 Private Albert Norris served in the Yorkshire Regiment, joining up sometime after January 1915. For his service during the First World War he was awarded the British War Medal and Victory Medal. He was transferred to the Royal Munster Fusiliers and served at the garrison in Cork. Following the war, he ran a Draper’s shop in Tonbridge, Kent. In 1924 He married Myra Donovan. Albert’s step granddaughter is Dame Kelly Holmes, double Olympic Champion.
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Edward Barker
Edward was the Great Uncle of Robert Raw and Margaret Hird, who visited the museum during one of our Ribbon of Remembrance drop-in days. Edward, born in Richmond (he lived for at time along Frenchgate and then at 3 Maison Dieu) worked as a plumber for the North Eastern Railway, and enlisted after the outbreak of war in York. He became a Private in the 17th (Service) Battalion (NER Pioneers), a group whose skills were vital in constructing and maintaining the railways that developed behind the lines which kept the troops equiped and fed for the duration of the war. Edward was killed on 2nd November 1917, during the period where the battalion were working on light railways in the Ypres sector and suffered from shrapnel and gas shelling as well as high-explosives. Edward Barker is buried in Bard Cottage Cemetery, Belgium.