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John T. Alderson

Private
32528
World War One

The JOHN T ALDERSON who appears on our 1914-18 Oakworth War Memorial was:

Private 32528 John Thomas ALDERSON, 8th (Service) Battalion of the York and Lancaster Regiment, killed in action on the 7th June 1917 aged 33. His name appears on the Ypres Menin Gate Memorial. He is also named on the War Memorial on the green at Reeth, North Yorkshire.

The 8th Service Battalion of the York and Lancaster Regiment eventually became part of the 23rd Division of the Second Army.
The 7th of June was the first day of the 'Flanders Offensive', and this was the day that John was killed. This part of the campaign eventually led to the battles of Ypres and Passchendaele. Before the Flanders offensive they were involved in the Battle of the Somme. Three of the most notorious battles in the whole of WW1.
John Thomas was born in West Hartlepool, County Durham, the son of James ALDERSON - born in Reeth in Swaledale who was the son of a miner - and Elizabeth BLENKIRON. In 1891 the family are recorded as living at Lees, Vale Mill Lane, Cross Roads where James was a manufacturers clerk and John Thomas was a scholar. In 1901 the family are recorded as living at 37 Station Terrace, Oakworth, where James was a bookkeeper and John Thomas a butcher. By 1917, James and his wife Elizabeth had moved to Bridge Terrace in Reeth, where they named their house “Oakworth”. Whether or not this move was after John's death is unknown.
John Thomas’s sister Harriet Eleanor ALDERSON married James ALDERSON of Reeth in Oakworth on 6 June 1903 and his brother George Thomas ALDERSON married in Keighley RD in 1909 before emigrating to Ohio USA.

In 1891 a second ALDERSON family from Reeth is recorded as living at Lees, Vale Mill Lane, Cross Roads. The head Jonathan, a woolcomber, was buried on 5 March 1894, his daughter Sarah Jane was buried on 3 May 1895, and his son Thomas was buried on 24 Jan 1900, all in Oakworth Wesleyan Cemetery. Other members of this family married and lived in the same area.

In 1901 a third ALDERSON family from Reeth is recorded as living at Oakworth Hall. The widow Annie of Henry ALDERSON was buried on 6 July 1905 and the daughter Margaret Ellen was buried on 13 Aug 1911, both in Oakworth Dockroyd Wesleyan Graveyard, where there is a memorial inscription.

This information from census records was kindly provided by Albert Alderson of the Alderson Family History Society.
We would appreciate any more information about John T. Alderson for this memorial page.
Please contact me, Andy Wade with any information.