John Warnes

Lance Corporal - Service No. 3404 - 1/4th Battalion Territorial Force Norfolk Regiment.

Private - Service No. 197672 - Labour Corps.

John Warnes was born in 1879 at Saxlingham Thorpe, Norfolk, the son of George Warnes and his wife Rachel (Utting). John was the fourth of eight children, Emma (1874), Sarah (1876), Mary (1878), William (1880), Annie (1882), Edith (1885) and Ethel (1890). George and Rachel had married on 7th October 1873 in Caister St. Edmunds, Norfolk and moved around the area, living in Swainsthorpe, Saxlingham, Alpington, Brandon Parva and finally, by 1890, Barnham Broom where, in June of that year, Rachel and daughter Ethel both died and were buried together on 7th July. They were, respectively, 41 years and one month old. In 1898 George married a widow Eva Gooderham (Woodrow) who had six children with her husband Benjamin before he died in January 1894. By this time George had given up farm work and had become a roadman along with son John, the only one of his "Warnes" family still living at home. He did however inherit four of Eva's "Gooderham" brood to fill his household and in late 1913 John Warnes married Rosa Gooderham, Eva's youngest daughter. George Warnes died in 1920.

John Warnes, now living at Keswick, joined the 1/4th Battalion Territorial Force of the Norfolk Regiment, then stationed at Colchester, on 26th October 1914. He joined with the rank of private and, on 2nd July the following year, left Liverpool for Gallipoli. Unfortunately his army service records have not survived but we do have his medal rolls and index cards from which it is possible to piece together some details of the next few years. In December 1915 he was evacuated from Gallipoli to Alexandria, the battalion remaining in Egypt and the surrounding countries for the rest of the war. John appears to have been wounded at some stage around now and was also promoted to lance corporal and it is quite likely these two events are linked. John was transferred to the Labour Corps, a "logistics" corps raised in 1915 and manned by officers and other ranks who had been rated below the A1 medical standard needed for front line service. On 5th February 1918 John was discharged from the Labour Corps as "no longer fit for active service as a result of wounds" in accordance with King's Regulations para 392 (xvi), he was 35.

John received the 1914 Star, British War Medal and Victory Medal and, as a result of his medical discharge, the Silver War Badge. When he died in 1937 at the age of 58 he left his widow Rosa with three children Kenneth (1914), Stella (1917) and Benjamin (1920). Benjamin died in WW2 and is commemorated in that section of this website.

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