5th Battalion, Canadian Infantry (Saskatchewan Regiment)
Died on Saturday, 10th November 1917 aged 53
Personal Information:
Harry Rattle was born 28 June 1863 at 5 Searle Street Lincoln Inn’s Fields, the son of Henry Rattle (1836-) and Mary Murray Kirk (1833-1900). He was baptised on 9 August 1863 at the church of St Brides Fleet Street.
He married Helen Kate Newman (1866-1951) at Bloefield Norfolk in 1887 and at the time of Harry’s death she was living at the Red House Plumstead Road Norwich. In 1901 they are living at 20 Crewdston Road Lambeth.
There was one son, Henry Newman Rattle who was born in August 1888 at 43 Trinity Square Lambeth, and baptised on 26 August 1888 at St Mary Lambeth. On 9 May 1905 he was apprentice to Gibson Clark of the Merchant Navy, but subsequently drowned on 7 September of that year.
Harry is shown on the 1911 census living in Battleford Saskatchewan, and is shown as married, but there is no sign of his wife. The document gives a date of emigration to Canada as 1906 shortly after his son’s death. His occupation is a labourer on the railroad.
His attestation was dated 17 May 1916 and made at Yorkton Saskatchewan.
Henry Rattle was the uncle of James Henry Rattle who also died in Flanders on 16 April 1918 and is commemorated on the Ploegsteert Memorial.
Note:
It would appear that Harry Rattle deliberately lied about his age in order to join up, his attestation shows that he stated that he was ten years younger than he actually was. Presumably to avoid this being found out, he also said that he was born in Norwich, which was his wife’s birthplace. His next of kin was stated as Mrs Mary Bott of 43 Winchester Road St Margaret’s on Thames Middlesex, who was his married sister.
Memorial:
Pane 18 Menin Gate Memorial, Ieper, West-Vlaanderen, Belgium