HARRY SEARS

I have included Harry Sears in my list as he is buried in Leverstock Green and remembered on two of the three war memorials in Leverstock Green. It was a discovery to find out how a person was included on the Leverstock Green Village War memorial.

At the start of my quest of discovery I came across Harry Sears and wondered why he was missing from the Village memorial, originally, I thought he was the one that got away, as he is remembered on the Leverstock Green School memorial and by the Vicar on his Easter Remembrance service in 1919. He was not even originally registered with the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, although he was one of the first to go over to France, 8 days after the declaration of war with Germany. In the end it was Harry who would give the reasons I believe just how and why you were named on the village war memorial.

If you take three soldiers from Leverstock Green, Harry Sears, Harry Woodwards and William Parkins, all were born in Leverstock Green and baptised in the village church, all attended the village school, all three moved away from the village some years prior to the war, all three are buried in Leverstock Green graveyard, all three are named by the vicar on his Easter pamphlet as having died due to the war, all three were recorded on the school war memorial, but only two are on Leverstock Green village war memorial, why was Harry Sears missing?

I came to the conclusion that to be named on the Village War Memorial you had to have lived at sometime in Leverstock Green. It did not matter how long the person had lived here, or when, but very close family members still had to be living in Leverstock Green. With Harry Sears I could not find any close relations living in Leverstock Green, the nearest had moved to Hemel Hempstead.

Harry was the 8th child to parents Jesse from Leverstock Green who worked as a gardener all his life and mother Emma came from Boxmoor. Harry was born on the 22nd of April 1879 in Bennetts End, his 7 older brothers and sisters were born in Gorhambury. The Sears family lived in Tile Kiln Lane. Harry would become a hall porter at the Portman Estate in Marylebone, London by the age of 22 and married Miriam Aston in February 1910 at St Andrews Church, Islington, he is now an Electrician. Their only Daughter, Ivy Madge was born in November that year, along with a move to Crayford in Kent.                                       

Why Harry enlisted for the Army Service Corp, motor transport section at the age of 34 in February 1914 can only be guessed at. The First World War began on 4th August 1914 and Harry was sent to France 8 days later. As the service papers for Harry were destroyed during the Second World War his service life is unknown, apart from being employed as a bus driver. 

Harry after surviving the war would become a victim of the Influenza epidemic that swept across the world at the end of the war

Harry died on 11th February 1919 at home in 9 Broomfield Cottages, Bowers Road,  Palmers Green, the day after his father Jesse. Both would be buried together in Leverstock Green.