A FIRST World War hero from Sutton has been remembered with a wreath on the anniversary of his death.

One of Percy Hargreaves’s descendants arranged for the wreath to be laid on the gravestone at St Imoges Church in France.

Ilkley man Jeremy Davy, son of Percy’s cousin, organised the tribute as the Keighley News recently highlighted Percy’s story in its weekly Men of Worth column.

Using research by Keighley’s Men of Worth Project, we told how the young man was just 17 when the Army ordered him to join up in 1916.

He was classed as medically fit in January the following year and was called up while working as an apprentice butcher for Gilbert Hargreaves in Cross Hills.

As Private Hargreaves he was transferred to the training reserve, then the West Riding Regiment, and in February 1918 he finally arrived in France.

Within four days Percy joined his unit in the field, and before summer was out, he was dead.

Percy was serving with the regiment at Henu when he and his comrades received their marching orders for Cherville and then Germaine, before finally going into action on the frontlines at a place called Marfaux on July 20.

It was there that Percy received wounds from a German shell explosion and was taken to the West Riding Field Ambulance unit, behind the lines, where he died.

In peacetime Percy had been closely associated with Sutton Baptist Church and Sunday School, and a memorial service was held at the church in August 1918.

The Cross Hills platoon of the West Riding Volunteers attended the service, along with the Sutton Baptist troop of Boy Scouts. The pastor, the Rev FW Pollard, paid a glowing tribute to Percy.

The Keighley News article was particularly interesting to Jeremy Davy, who lives in Sidmouth, Devon, and is deputy head at a school in Exeter.

Jeremy’s grandfather was Percy’s cousin, and his own father Roger arranged for the anniversary wreath to be laid at St Imoges.

Jeremy said: “There was an interesting detail in the Keighley News story about the circumstances of Percy’s death which I didn’t know. I had always assumed it was bullet wounds.

“It was fascinating to read about the place where he saw action, as again I only knew it as the Battle of Tardenois.”

Jeremy has since been told more of his ancestor’s story by Andy Wade, director of the Men of Worth Project, which researches the stories of Keighley people who fought in the First and Second World Wars.

Andy said Percy’s army service record revealed he was was admitted to the 2/1 West Riding Field Ambulance on July 20, 1918 with ‘shell wound to the abdomen and left arm’ and that he died of wounds that day.

Andy said: “On another sheet there’s a mention of SW which is shorthand for ‘Shot Wound’ or Shrapnel Wound.’ Sometimes we see GS.. which is generally accepted as ‘Gun Shot Wound.’

“In the casualty evacuation chain, wounds classification wasn’t normally too specific, because to the medics the cause was not as important as the course of treatment and they might have hundreds of cases coming through so they just put SW.

“We’re quite lucky that it says ‘Shell Wound’ so we’re looking at shrapnel coming from a shell explosion.

“Only a surgeon would know what he was removing from a wound and by that stage it didn’t matter and wouldn’t have been recorded except on rare occasions.

“We’d be more likely to see it in a letter home in cases where the soldier found out what had been dug out of his wound.”

Andy said the Battalion War Diary provided details of what the soldiers were doing on any particular day, and were accessible free at Keighley Library through the Ancestry website.

The National Archives website offers entire digitised war diaries for a small fee.

Andy added: Percy would have served at Beaumont Hamel, Faveruil, Gommecourt, Beametz, Bethune, Roclincourt.”