Reginald George's Story.
EARLY LIFE
Reginald George Hepplestone was born in Macclesfield and baptised at Church Hulme (now known as Holmes Chapel), Cheshire on 31 March 1878, the son of Elizabeth and Joseph Hepplestone, a smallware dealer of Macclesfield.
In 1881, three-year-old Reginald was living at 76 Peel Street, Macclesfield with his mother, his father being absent on census day. By 1901 Reginald's mother was married to George Brownson, the family then living at 1 Pembroke Avenue, Chorlton, South Manchester; Reginald was working as a wood carver.
In 1904 Reginald was involved in a serious cycle accident on the road between the Cat and Fiddle Inn (near Macclesfield) and Buxton, running into another cyclist who had stopped to attend to the injuries of another member of his cycling group. Reginald sustained head injuries and all the cyclists were taken to the Devonshire Hospital in Buxton.
In 1911 Reginald was thirty-three years old, still unmarried, and recorded in the census with his mother and stepfather at 2 Pembroke Grove, Chorlton upon Medlock, Manchester. Five years later, at St John's Church, Macclesfield, Reginald married Annie Swaine, a thirty-four-year-old sewing machinist of 34 Peel Street, Macclesfield.
Annie did not remarry after Reginald's death, and she died on 6 October 1939.
WW1 SERVICE
Reginald Hepplestone enlisted in Manchester with the 3rd Battalion, Loyal North Lancashire Regiment, service no. 32371, and was later transferred to the 7th Battalion, Border Regiment with service number 28398.
Reginald was reported missing on 23 April 1917 and his mother contacted the Red Cross in an attempt to discover his whereabouts, but it was later assumed he had been killed in action on that date.
COMMEMORATION
Private Reginald Hepplestone has no known grave and is commemorated on panel ref. Bay 6 of the Arras Memorial, France.
In Macclesfield, Private Reginald Hepplestone is commemorated on the Park Green war memorial and St Johns Church Roll of Honour. He is also remembered on his wife’s family gravestone in Macclesfield cemetery, grave ref. D 3882: ... PTE REGINALD HEPPLESTONE KILLED IN ACTION IN FRANCE APRIL 23RD 1917 AGED 39 YEARS...
SOURCES
Cheshire Parish Baptism Registers (Find My Past)
Census (England & Wales): 1881, 1891, 1901
Commonwealth War Graves Commission website
WW1 British Army Service Records (Find My Past)
WWI Pension Record Cards (Western Front Association)
Family History Society of Cheshire: Macclesfield Area Monumental Inscriptions
Sheffield Daily Telegraph: 24 May 1904
Research by Rosie Rowley, Congleton.