Harry Bunn

(Private - Suffolk Regiment?)

Harry Bunn, the son of Richard Bunn and his wife Harriet (Hammond), was born in 1879 at Silfield, Norfolk. He was the eldest of three children the others being Richard (1881) and Grace (1883). Richard and Harriet married at Wymondham, Norfolk, on 14th February 1874 and lived their whole lives at Wymondham or Silfield. Richard died in 1931 and Harriet in 1935.

On 13th January 1900 Harry married Alice Maude Goldspink at Wymondham. Alice was born at Welton, near Hull, in Yorkshire, in 1879, the daughter of John and Mary Ann Goldspink. Although John was essentially an agricultural labourer from Pulham St. Mary it appears that after he married Mary Ann he tried his hand at labouring on the railways for ten or twelve years in Yorkshire, where the couple's first four children were born, before returning to working on the land at Stoke Holy Cross around 1890 when Alice was 11.

Harry and Alice had two daughters, Elsie Muriel and Doris Selina, both born at Silfield in 1904 and 1908 respectively. Harry died in 1963 and Alice in 1954. A number of possible marriages for their daughters have been found but nothing confirmed so here the story ends - for now!

According to the Roll of Honour in the church Harry served in the Suffolk Regiment as a private during WW1. Extensive searches of the database at the Imperial War Museum, detailing every man that served and his unit, reveals a total of seven records for a private Harry Bunn - unfortunately none even close to serving in the Suffolk Regiment. Similarly a search of every Suffolk Regiment, Territorial etc. reveals nobody called Harry, Henry or anything close with the surname of Bunn (or similar) so, the mystery deepens!

Return to WW1 1914-1918