Harold Batchelor was born towards the end of 1886 to Richard and Caroline Austin. The family lived at 6 Boxted Cottages, just north west of Hemel Hempstead, when Harold was born. This was a farming area, much as it is today and Harold’s father and two of his older brothers, Walter and Leonard, were working on the land in 1891.

He grew up in a large family with eight brothers and one sister. His parents had eleven children altogether one of whom had died young. The surviving children were: Walter, Leonard, Alfred, Annie, Frederick Daniel, Harold, Charley, Herbert, Arthur and William. Frederick died in 1896 aged twelve and Walter died in 1903 aged twenty-nine.

Harold’s father died in 1898, leaving Caroline to raise the family and in 1901 the census return records that she was a Charwoman “occasionally”. However, four of her sons, including Harold, were working on nearby farms as Agricultural Labourers. By 1911 Harold was the oldest son still living at home aged twenty-four and he was working as a Bricklayers Labourer. His four younger brothers were Nurserymen or Agricultural Labourers.

Harold disembarked in France with the 1st Battalion Bedfordshire Regiment on the 16th of August 1914, only twelve days after war had broken out. The 1st Battalion was ‘Regular Army’ which suggests that Harold had enlisted at some point after 1911 and before 1914. His name does not appear in the Hemel Gazette on any of the early lists of new recruits, which seems to confirm his earlier enlistment as a regular soldier.

The Battalion mobilized at Mullingar in Ireland between the 5th and 13th August 1914 and embarked for Havre, sailing from Belfast aboard “S.S. Oronsa” on the 14th August. It was part of 15th Brigade, 5th Division. The "Oransa" was used extensively as a troop transport until it was sunk ii April 1918 by German submarine U91. In France, the Battalion saw action in 1914 at The Battles of Mons, Le Cateau, The Marne, The Aisne, La Bassee and The First Battle of Ypres. It was also engaged in the Battle for Hill 60 in April and May 1915.

The timelines of Harold’s service, illness and death are not clear. He would have fought in some of the early battles in 1914 and we know that he was wounded seriously enough to come back to England for a time. After recovering he embarked for France once more, but research has not pinpointed when this took place.

Harold died of illness on The Friday, 30th April 1915, at the Meerut British General Hospital, Rouen in France as a result of "Spotted Fever". It is most likely that this was in fact Meningococcal Meningitis, a bacterial disease which, was not uncommon amongst serving soldiers both before and during the Great War. Overcrowding and close proximity to comrades in the trenches and billets enabled easy transmission of this disease. In 1915, official figures for the British Army record that, 357 men contracted Meningococcal Meningitis and of these, 169 men died, a mortality rate of 47%.

If indeed this was the cause of Harold’s death, it is most likely that he was taken mortally ill about six days before he died. The disease has an incubation period of between three and four days and death usually follows only 48hrs after the sickness takes hold.

Harold is Remembered with Honour in St. Sever Cemetery, Rouen, France where he is interred in Plot A. 8. 14.

He was 29 years old when he died.

Harold was eligible for the 1914-15 Star, the British War Medal and the Allied Victory Medal.