Fact file:
Matriculated: Not applicable
Born: 23 August 1898
Died: 27 September 1917
Regiment: The King’s (Liverpool Regiment)
Grave/Memorial: Tyne Cot Memorial: Panels 31 to 34 and 162, 162A and 163A
Family background
b. 23 August 1898 in Birmingham as the elder son of John William Barratt (1860–1929) and his second wife Rose Laura Harrison Barratt (née Denza) (c.1878–1961) (m. 1896). At the time of the 1901 Census, the family was living at 45, Calthorpe Road, Edgbaston, Birmingham (three servants); by the time of the 1911 Census, the family had moved to 16, Greville Road, Maida Vale, London NW6 (three servants), and was still living there in February 1918.
Parents
Barratt’s father was the son of a pearl button turner from Birmingham and became a chartered accountant.
Barratt’s mother was the daughter of a commercial clerk.
Siblings and their families
Barratt was the half-brother of Herbert William (1887–1962), the son of John William’s first wife, Ada Susannah Barratt (née Hawley) (1862–87) (m. 1884), who died giving birth to him.
He was also the brother of Frank Edmund (1902–60), who married (1922) Beatrice Elena Paolina Kitching (1880–1961); marriage dissolved in 1928; she then married (1929) Avington E. Hahn (1894–1974), a clerk in the Civil Service, but that marriage was dissolved in 1941.
Herbert William became a chartered accountant and after the war worked in the Birmingham branch of his father’s firm. In February 1918 he was living at 75, New Street, Birmingham.
Frank Edmund was also a Chorister at Magdalen College School, and he went home the day after the news of his brother’s death reached the school. It is probable that he later became an administrator in the Westminster Hospital.
Education
Barratt attended Magdalen College School from 1909 to 1916 and during this period he was a Chorister from 1909 to 1910. He was a remarkable all-round sportsman, being a strong swimmer, who “dominated the swimming competitions” that took place every year in the Cherwell River at Cox’s Corner (Parson’s Pleasure) on the third Saturday in July during his time at the School. In 1911 he won the under-14 competition, in 1914 the under-16 competition, and in 1915 he won the “Open Race”. It was observed that he would be an even better swimmer “if his strokes were longer and his style less snatchy”. Barratt was also a particularly powerful rower. In March 1914, at 9st 7lbs, he rowed No. 2 in the School’s Second coxed IV and was described as
the most important oar in the boat. Works hard and keeps his swing when tired. Has quite a good swing which could be improved by steadying it a little more during the last part forward. Is fairly firm on his feet. Must remember to keep his eyes in the boat.
By the rowing season of 1916 he had gained a stone in weight, and during this, his final year at the School, he became Captain of rowing and stroked the School’s First coxed IV: “Stroke has a future. Does things right in a way, save for a sad hang over the stretcher. A week or two behind a good Torpid stroke would set this right.”
In addition he was also quite a good gymnast who represented the School in 1915, and a member of the football 1st XI (full back) in the same year. In 1916, he also became a member of the School’s hockey team, where it was said of him that “he works hard, but is not very clever with his stick” and, briefly, of the cricket 1st XI, where he played in one game and scored five runs. From Michaelmas Term 1915 to Michaelmas 1916 he was a House Prefect In the same academic year he was accepted as a Commoner by Magdalen, where his sporting prowess, especially on the river, would have been greatly appreciated, but did not matriculate.
War service
In 1915 Barratt joined the Oxford Volunteer Training Corps and served with this unit for 18 months, and in 1916 he spent three months as a Platoon Sergeant in the Magdalen College School Junior Officers’ Training Corps. He attested on 6 May 1916 and became a member of the Army Reserve on 7 May 1916 – i.e .before leaving school. He was mobilized on 26 September 1916 and on 8 October 1916, while he was in ‘C’ Company of the Artists’ Rifles (the 2/28th (County of London) Battalion, the London Regiment, that was stationed at Hare Hall, Romford, Essex), he applied for acceptance by an Officer Cadet Battalion. On 4 December 1916 he was transferred to No. 2 Officer Cadet Training Cadet Battalion at Pembroke College, Cambridge. On 25 April 1917 he was commissioned Second Lieutenant in one of the Regular Battalions of the King’s (Liverpool) Regiment, and then transferred to the Regiment’s 13th (Service) Battalion. This had been formed at Seaforth, Liverpool, in October 1914 and served in France since 27 September 1915 as part of the 76th Brigade, 25th Division.
Barratt disembarked in France on 22 June 1917 and reported for duty with the Battalion on 27 June 1917, when it was in billets at Fosseux, about nine miles west of Arras, having been part of 9th Brigade, in the 3rd Division, since 4 April 1916. Three days later, the Battalion was in billets at Achiet-le-Petit, on the Somme, and by 1 July 1917, it had moved north-eastwards and was in the front line at Demicourt, just east of Doignies, c.12 miles south-east of Cambrai, where it was attacked by the Germans on 20 July after a preliminary bombardment. The attack was beaten off and many Germans were killed, and on 22 July the Battalion retired to billets in nearby Vélu until 31 July. It then spent one more day in the same trenches before retiring to Vélu once more. On 3 August, Barratt was sent on an entrenching course with the Engineers of the 3rd Division, and from 7 to 12 August the Battalion was in support in the sunken road south of Lagnicourt-Marcel, just to the north-west. After spending three days in the front line, the Battalion rested and trained from 16 to 21 August at Frémicourt Camp, between Vélu and Bapaume, spent another period in the line at Lagnicourt-Marcel from 21 August to 4 September, rested and trained at Frémicourt Camp once more until 9 September, and then trained at Beaulencourt, a mile or so south of Bapaume, until 18 September 1917. On that day it marched to Miraumont, just to the east of Beaumont-Hamel, via the two villages of Achiet and the town of Bapaume, and then travelled by train north-westwards towards the Ypres Salient, where it detrained at the newly constructed junction known as Hopoutre (probably a pseudo-French corruption by the British soldiers of “Hop out here”).
The Battalion remained in camp near Camp Erie, near Brandhoek, on the following day and stayed there preparing for the next action until 22 September, two days into that phase of the Third Battle of Ypres that became known as the Battle of the Menin Road Ridge (20–25 September 1917). On the following day, it took up position in the front-line trenches near Mannebeke Wood and held these for three days. Then, on 26 September, the first day of the Battle of Polygon Wood (26 September–3 October 1917), when five British and two Australian Divisions attacked at dawn along a five-mile front towards Zonnebeke and Hill 40, Barratt’s Battalion found itself initially in Divisional Reserve. This encounter was significant for being marked by a change in Allied tactics: after the recent Battle of the Menin Road Ridge, General Sir Herbert Plumer (1857–1932), the Commander of the Second Army and the architect of the Allied victory at Messines Ridge in June 1917, had replaced General Sir Hubert Gough (1870–1963), and was given leave to try out his innovative “bite and hold” tactics. Instead of launching a mass attack that petered out, he selected a small section of enemy front, bombarded it, attacked it in strength, stopped his troops after they had penetrated 1,500 yards into the enemy front, and then had them dig in, so that when the inevitable counter-attack occurred, the enemy were faced with a well- prepared defensive line that was manned by well-organized troops who were not exhausted.
At about 19.30 hours on 26 September, Barratt’s Battalion received word that the battalions in the front line were falling back because of enemy pressure. So the 13th Battalion moved forward in support, and at midnight it was ordered further forward still until, at 05.00 hours on 27 September 1917, it was able to get into position opposite Zonnebeke, the position next to the last objective in the previous day’s attack, losing three officers killed in action as they did so. The Battalion then remained in position all day until, at 18.30 hours, a heavy artillery barrage formed the prelude to a German counter-attack from Hill 40 which, as Plumer’s tactics dictated, was repulsed. During this action, Barratt was killed in action, aged 19, and another officer was wounded. His Commanding Officer wrote to his family:
On the night that he was killed he was leading his platoon to re-occupy some ground which had been previously captured. He insisted on exposing himself in a most gallant manner, and unfortunately a sniper shot him dead.
Barratt has no known grave. He is commemorated on Panels 31–34, 162, 162A and 163B, Tyne Cot Memorial. His family received a gratuity of £46 10s.
Bibliography
For the books and archives referred to here in short form, refer to the Slow Dusk Bibliography and Archival Sources.
Printed sources:
[Anon.], ‘Second Lieutenant John Leslie Barratt’ [obituary], The Times, no. 41,602 (6 October 1917), p. 5.
Bebbington (2014), pp. 61–7 (three photographs).
Archival sources:
WO95/1429.
WO339/81850.