War Memorial
Private Harry Horsey, service number 27425 (also recorded as G/27425), served with the 13th Battalion of the Middlesex Regiment. He signed up at Maidstone in Kent and died of wounds on 22 June 1917, at around twenty-one years of age. He is commemorated on the Leigh War Memorial.
Harry came from Penshurst in Kent, where he was born. He was the second son of George Horsey, whose home was at Cook's Pits, Penshurst. The family was a large one: the 1901 census records three sons and three daughters, and Harry's mother was named Jane. Sadly, Jane died in 1909, some years before her son's death on active service.
Harry was laid to rest at Lijssenthoek Military Cemetery, near Poperinge in Belgium. The village stood close to the Front yet beyond the reach of most German field artillery, making it a natural site for casualty clearing stations on the main Allied communication line. Burials there began with the French 15th Hopital D'Evacuation, and Commonwealth clearing stations started using the ground from June 1915. Cemetery details are drawn from the Commonwealth War Graves Commission.