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Joseph Lister (1894-1974)


West Herrington man served with Royal Garrison Artillery


From a family member:

Joseph Lister was my grandfather. He had a very strange childhood; he was illegitimate but he was kept within the family and lived most of his early life with his grandparents. By the time he was only one year old his mother had married and had had another child.

He ended up with six half-siblings and for a while, in his teens and early 20s, he lived with his mother and step-father. His mother went on to outlive her first two husbands, marrying for the third time at the age of 65.

Born and raised in Herrington, he appears on the 1911 census as being 17 years old and living with family in nearby Penshaw. His occupation is ‘coal miners’ putter’, a really awful job of pushing tubs of hewn coal to a part of the mine where it could be taken above ground. He had followed his grandfather, uncles and step-father into the mines.

With the outbreak of the First World War, he enlisted almost as soon as he could, and on 1 September 1914 he joined the 11th Reserve Cavalry. A family story telling that he didn’t like the horses and so he left appears to be true as I have his discharge paper stating he is fit for civilian life. He lasted 51 days before they sent him packing. Not to be out done and one month later, on the 25 November, he enlisted in the Royal Garrison Artillery, 26th Siege Battery. He spent his whole military career with the artillery and was demobilised on 3 Jan 1919.

I have, unfortunately, found details about his Division difficult to find, but what little I know is that they were charged with the use of large guns of various calibre called ‘Howitzers’. They used long range shelling techniques to destroy specific targets or provide cover for ground troops. My grandfather was a ‘gun layer’; he was the member of the team who sighted the guns, making sure shells hit their target.

When he was demobilised in 1919, he returned to Herrington and went back to the mine, he then literally married the ‘girl next door’; he lived at 38, my grandmother at 39! They had seven children but sadly only three survived, one of which was my father. He continued to work in the pit at Herrington, although their home was in Newbottle. He eventually retired to a small bungalow with my grandmother, she passed away in 1967, and he followed her seven years later at the age of 82.

Civil Parish: West Herrington

Birth date: 14-Jan-1894

Death date: 1967

Armed force/civilian: Army

Residence: 39 Railway Terrace, West Herrington (Baptism database, Findmypast, 1901 census)
13 Bell Street, Penshaw (1911 census)
39 Garden Place, Old Penshaw (Army Service Record, 1914)
7 Douglas Terrace, Old Penshaw (Army Service Record, 1919)
7 Pit Lane, Philadelphia, Fencehouse (Army Service Record, 1921)

Employment: Putter (1911 census)

Family: Mother: Mary Jane Lister (Baptism database, Findmypast), Maria Jane Harkness (1911 census)
Step-father: George Harkness
Half-siblings: John George Harkness, Alice Anne Harkness, Robert William Harkness (1911 census)
Grandparents: John Lister, Martha D Lister
Aunts and uncles: Richard Lister, William Lister, James Lister, Elizabeth A Lister, John J Lister (1901 census)
Wife: Loveday J Gill, married 1919

Military service:

20308
Private
11th Reserve Cavalry Regiment
Attested: 1 September 1914
Discharged as unlikely to become an efficient soldier: 21 October 1914

55009
Gunner
Royal Garrison Artillery
Attested: 25 November 1914
Disembarked in Bologne: 4 August 1915
Posted to Edinburgh discharge centre for release as miner: 21 December 1918

Gender: Male

Contributed by Sandy, Harrogate

Comments on this story


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This is very interesting. I think my Grandad was related to Joseph Lister. Thomas Lister Harkness 1912-1982

Contributed by

Paula

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