12386 Private James Mellor

12386 Private James Mellor was born in 1893 in Smallthorne, Staffordshire. He was one of four children to James and Frances Mellor; James’s father’s occupation was a Blast furnace labourer. On the 1911 census James’s occupation was a grocer’s assistant, he lived with his family at 32 Chetwynd Street, Smallthorne.

There are no surviving service records for James; all we know is that he enlisted in Stoke-on-Trent in 1916, when he first enlisted he was in the North Staffordshire Regiment, Regimental number 13690, then he transferred to the Machine Gun Corps and given the Regimental number 12386. His Medal Index Card gives no date details as to when he disembarked in France, James was killed on the 8^th September 1916 age 23 years, he is buried in Harbarcq Communal Cemetery extension in Northern France.