John Henry (Jack) Rushbrook

Rifleman - Service No. 8430 - 1st Battalion Rifle Brigade

John Henry Rushbrook, the son of William Rushbrook and his wife Ann (Beck), was born in June 1882 in Woodbastwick, Norfolk. He was the fourth of five children, Mary (1874), James (1876), Maria (1880) and Alice (1889). The family moved from Woodbastwick to Mulbarton in the late 1800s. In late 1911 John married Margaret Ellen Buxton in Mulbarton, Norfolk. Margaret was born on 2nd May 1890 in Framingham Pigot, Norfolk, the daughter of Charles Buxton and his wife Matilda (Banthorpe).

As a teenager John lived on The Rosery, Mulbarton, with his parents and worked as a carpenter. By 1911 John was working as a domestic gardener and living with his married brother James and his wife and two sons in Swardeston. John's mother, Anne, had already died in 1904 at Mulbarton and his father William died in 1912 while an inmate at the Union Workhouse in Swainsthorpe.

John joined the 1st Battalion Rifle Brigade (The Prince Consort's Own) as a rifleman, Service No. 8430, and embarked for France on 11th September 1914. He was killed in action on 2nd May 1915 near Ypres and is commemorated on the Menin Gate Memorial (Bay 48, Panel J). His army records do not survive but we know he was awarded the 1914 Star, British War Medal and Victory Medal that were posted to his widow Margaret on 22nd May 1919.

In 1922 Margaret Rushbrook was remarried to Sidney A Canham. She died in 1968.

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