Blackmore Area Local History

Herbert Larke

War Memorial: Place and inscription
-

Rank:
Private

Regiment:
Lancashire Fusiliers. 2^nd / 8^th Battalion.  Service No: 235977 [CWGC]

Service Details:
Formerly Essex Regiment. No. 2137

Personal and family information:
Son of Mr William and Mrs E Larke of Copyhold Cottage Blackmore.  (Note: parents should read Walter and Frances E.) [CWGC]

Marriage of parents:
Earl, Frances Eleanor. Larke, Walter George.  Erpingham.  4b. 83 [Free BMD]
Birth
Births Sep 1894.  Larke, Herbert.  Smallburgh.  4b.  59.
Births Jun 1896.  Larke, Herbert.  Smallburgh.  4b.  59 [Free BMD]

Not in Blackmore on 1901 or 1911 Census.
1911 Census: Herbert Larke, age 16. Erpingham, Norfolk.
In 1911 Census, Walter George Larke, aged 42 (born 1869) is living at Erpingham.
Also William Larke, age 9 (born 1901/2) is there too.  Billy Larke, as he was known worked at Copyhold Farm in the late 1920s.

1918 Electoral Roll [ERO C/E 2/1/1]: No Larke’s present in Blackmore.
1924 Electoral Roll [ERO C/E 2/1/7]. First entry of family in Spring Register (15^th April 1924):
Lark, Walter George. Copyhold Cottage
Lark, Frances Eleanor. Do
Lark, William. Do.
William Larke married Alice Gosling (a Stondon Massey resident) at St Peter & St Paul’s Church, Stondon Massey, on 10^th April 1926. [ERO D/P 98/1/7].

1929 Electoral Roll [ERO C/E 2/1/12]
Walter George Lark & Frances Eleanor Lark (no ‘e’) lived at Copyhold Cottages
William Lark & Alice Lark (no ‘e’) lived at Old School House.

Ruth, great neice of Herbert Larke wrote, "My mother, Rose, was born in 1926 (known around Blackmore as Rosie).  Her father was William Larke (1901 -1965) but he was born in Norfolk, although his parents ended up in Essex and are buried together in Stondon Massey churchyard (Walter George Larke 1868 -1936 and Frances Eleanor Larke nee Earl 1868 - 1952).

Date of Death:
21^st March 1918

Age:
23

Where died:
The POZIERES MEMORIAL relates to the period of crisis in March and April 1918 when the Allied Fifth Army was driven back by overwhelming numbers across the former Somme battlefields, and the months that followed before the Advance to Victory, which began on 8^th August 1918. The Memorial commemorates over 14,000 casualties of the United Kingdom and 300 of the South African Forces who have no known grave and who died on the Somme from 21^st March to 7^th August 1918.

Place of Burial or Commemoration:
Remembered on Pozieres Memorial. Panel 33. [CWGC]

List of Sources:
Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC), Essex Record Office, Free BMD