J's Story.
It is difficult to state for certain the identity of Gunner J Higgins, though the Alsager parish magazine of 1915 mentions him as one who enlisted in the autumn of 1914, which gives one clue. He must have had a strong connection to the town. and the following infornation is a "best guess" based on his early enlistment.
It is possible that he was James Henry Higgins, born 1890, at Thurlwood, in the parish of Odd Rode. He was the son of John Higgins (1857 - 1926) and Elizabeth Woodward (1851–1899). By 1901, his parents were living on Crewe Road, Alsager, next door to the The Lodge Inn. James enlisted into the Cheshire Regiment in September 1914, at Hanley, Stoke-on-Trent, regimental number 16697, and may have been attached to an Artillery unit in the Cheshires, which would explain his rank of Gunner. James Higgins 16697 was discharged from service on 10th October 1916 because of his wounds, and given a silver badge to wear. His medal card shows that he was sent to France on 25th September 1915.
There is no record of his death in England, so the identity of J Higgins cannot be verified. His name was not included in a memorial service in 1917 in Alsager. No mention of the soldiers' regiments is given in the newspaper account of June 1920, when the War Memorial was unveiled, but we can assume that all the soldiers named on the memorial (including "J Higgins") had died between 1914 and 1920.
It is possible to name some soldiers who are NOT the Gunner Higgins referred to on the memorial ....
For example, Private William Higgins, whose name also appears on the memorial, had an uncle James Henry Higgins, born in 1879 near Alsager, who had enlisted as a gunner in the Royal Artillery in 1900, regimental number 5706. However, that "Gunner J Higgins" married Edith Bayes in 1919, and was still alive at the time of the 1921 census, and living in Scholar Green in 1924, so he is almost certainly not the J Higgins on the memorial.) Both he and his brother Joseph Jackson Higgins (1876 - 1956) occupied the Rising Sun pub on Station Road, at Scholar Green / Kent Green / Mow Cop around 1921.
If you have any information about Gunner J Higgins, please contact Cheshire Roll.