After finishing school he got a job clerking at his Dad’s coal merchants but got itchy feet and in 1909 tried his luck in South Africa. He was working at the Robinson Gold Mine, the deepest in the world, for three years before returning home in 1912. On the 25th March 1913 he boarded the RMS Teutonic and set sail for a new life via Portland, Maine and then up to Winnipeg in Canada. 

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             He was in Canada working as a farmer in Winnipeg when war was declared in August 1914. The Canadian Government had no overseas army but quickly formed the Canadian Expeditionary Force to serve in Europe. On the 19th December 1914 Harry signed up and his records show that he was 5 foot 7, had a 36 inch chest, fair complexion, brown eyes and auburn hair. 

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            After some initial training and another transatlantic crossing Harry moved to Bustard Camp on Salisbury Plain. In September 1915 after more intense training he joined the 10th Battalion which was now in France. 

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            For the next eighteen months Harry with the 10th Battalion was involved in numerous battles such as: 

Mount Sorrel: An unsuccessful assault, this counter-attack by the 10th Battalion was launched on a small knoll in the Ypres Salient on 3 June 1916. Considerable losses were suffered. Despite the relatively low height of this feature, it provided an excellent viewpoint over the otherwise flat terrain in the area and was of considerable strategic importance. 

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Somme, 1916: Luckily the 10th were not involved in the opening phases of this campaign, which began on 1 July 1916.  The 10th Battalion was involved in a series of operations from 8 September and 17 October, primarily defensive actions near Albert which were successful. 

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Thiepval: Thiepval Ridge, near the town of Courcelette, represented a successful offensive operation for the 10th Battalion, fought on 26 September 1916, at the cost of 241 casualties. 

Ancre Heights: Another successful defensive battle fought by the 10th Battalion, during the Somme Campaign. 

Vimy, 1917: Vimy was the greatest victory of the war for the Canadian Corps, which by 1917 numbered four divisions. In a dramatic assault on Easter Monday, 9 April, the Canadians seized most of this dominating feature in a few short hours, and finally clearing the entire ridge in three days. The British and French had been unable to clear these heights since the Germans first seized them in 1914, and had lost more men in the process of trying than the Canadians as a whole started out with on 9 April. The 10th Battalion had its own role to play in this great drama, and reached all its objectives on time, at the cost of 374 casualties. 

Arleux: The Arleux Loop was a follow-up to the Vimy operation, launched on 28 April 1917, aimed at capturing a major German billeting area at Arleux-en-Gohelle. The operation went in over open ground and produced serious casualties. Harry was one of these casualties and his body was never found. He is remembered on the Canadian war memorial at Vimy Ridge near the town of Arras in France. 

 

He is one of the 11,285 Canadians recorded on the monument who lost their lives in France and who have

no known grave.