HAROLD CAWTHRA 

Harold's Story.

Birkenhead News  March 1915

BIRKENHEAD SCOT KILLED

Struck by Piece of Shell

The death roll among Birkenhead’s representatives at the front has been a heavy one, and the British victory of last week has, unhappily, brought in its train acute grief into a number of local homes. It is with much regret that we report the death of Private Harold Cawthra, aged 19, the youngest son of Mrs. Cawthra, of 11, Albert Road, Birkenhead. This boy hero enlisted in the 10^th Battalion Liverpool Scottish early in September, and made such rapid progress in his training that he was drafted to the front in January. He took part in some very heavy engagements and was with the Scottish in the gallant charge at the battle of Neuve Chapelle.

Serving with Private Cawthra was his elder brother, Claude, the well-known footballer, who on various occasions has played for Tranmere Rovers, Northern Nomads and Wrexham, and it became this soldier’s painful duty to break to his mother, through his sister, the sad news of the younger lad’s death. In a letter received this week he states that on March 13^th the Liverpool Scottish were in the trenches and Harold was struck on the head and almost instantly killed by a new kind of shell that the Germans are now using.

Harold Cawthra was held in high esteem by his numerous friends, who have been deeply moved by his glorious though untimely death. He was before joining the colours in the employ of the Brittania Insurance Company, and was an old scholar of Claughton Higher Grade School. His last letter home was dated Friday last, March 12^th, and in it he assured his brother that he was “OK.”