In search of the parents of Corporal James Hardy (1886-1958) of the WW I overseas
Since 2019, in the context of the project « Visages estriens – Homage à nos militaires » the Genealogical Society of the Eastern Townships has published a series of books of biographies and genealogies of military service personnel from the region. We have discovered a great deal of information on Corporal James Hardy, but in order to complete his genealogy, we lack essential information : the name of his parents in England. Hence, we appeal to readers of The Record. Here is what we know about this soldier.
James Hardy was born at Macclesfield in Cheshire, England on 18 October 1886. He emigrated from England in 1912, the same year as his future wife, Emma Jane Kilshaw (1893-1969) of Liverpool. James and Emma were married in 1915 in the Adventist Church on Bowen South, in Sherbrooke. The couple had one son, Gordon, born in Sherbrooke in 1918 and who died in 1942 in the Netherlands or in Germany. According to Military documents, they lived on Montreal Street in Sherbrooke.
James enrolled as a soldier about 1914 in the 53rd Sherbrooke Regiment, and, in 1915 in the 5th Battalion of the Canadian Mounted Rifles. Promoted to corporal, he disembarked in England in August 1915 and subsequently in France in 1915.
On October 5 1916 he was wounded in the thigh by a shrapnel. In February 1917 he was transferred to the 23rd Canadian Reserve Battalion, based at Shorehan in West Sussex. He left Glasgow on May 11, 1919 aboard S.S. Saturnie and was demobilized in Montreal on 22 May 1919. In recognition of his service during the war, he was awarded the 1914-1915 Star, the British War Medal, the Victory Medal and the War Service Badge.
Around 1919, James lived on 3rd Street (North Vimy since 1919), and according to the 1921 census, he lived on a farm at Bulwer, in the Eaton Township (lot 14, rang II), and on Maple Street in Sherbrooke around 1926. James began as a messenger and then as a table boy around 1935, and finally as a mechanic at Canadian Ingersoll Rand around 1940. He later lived in London, Ontario around 1945. We do not know when he returned to Sherbrooke because there is no mention of him in the Sherbrooke directories, however he died there on 7 July 1958. He is buried along with his wife in St Peter’s Cemetery, Sherbrooke.
If you have any information, please contact : Jean-marie Dubois
Commandeur de l’ordre de la Croix des Fusiliers de Sherbrooke
Rédacteur en chef de « Visages estriens – Hommage à nos militaires »
jean-marie.dubois@usherbrooke.ca