Harry (Henry) Woodwards was born in Leverstock Green, Hertfordshire on Saturday, 11th December 1880 and baptised on Sunday, 13th March the following year at Holy Trinity Church in the village. He was the sixth child born to James Woodwards and Hannah Bennett who had seven other children: Emma, Alfred, Robert, Rose, Annie, Minnie and Edward.

The Woodwards family lived in ‘The Briars’ in Leverstock Green where Harry grew up and the house still stands in the village today.

In 1891 when Harry was ten years old, the whole family, with the exception of Harry and his younger sister Minnie, were employed in agricultural labouring, straw hat sewing or domestic servitude. Meanwhile Harry and Minnie were pupils at the Leverstock Green National School on Bedmond Road.

When he left school, Harry worked for a number of years as an agricultural labourer before he decided to follow his older brother Robert into the Army. He enlisted with the Grenadier Guards when he was three months short of his twentieth birthday, attesting in London on the 17th July 1900 and signing on for three years’ service in the Colours and nine years in the ‘Reserve’. On enlistment Harry was taller than average at 5 feet 10 inches and he was described as having a ‘medium’ complexion, blue eyes, brown hair and weighing 10st 10lbs.

Harry served for three years as a regular soldier before transferring as a 1st Class Reserve until 1912 when he re-engaged in the Reserve for a further four years which guaranteed him an army pension.

By this time Harry had met and married Catherine Annie Fensome at St. Martin’s Church in Bedford in December 1909. He was working for London County Council as an Attendant in an Asylum whilst he and Catherine lived at 2 Brunswick Crescent, New Southgate. Harry worked at Colney Hatch Lunatic Asylum, officially referred to as the Second Middlesex County Asylum, which was situated in Springfield Road less than a mile from his home.

On the outbreak of war, Harry was mobilised at London on the 5th August 1914 and re-joined the Grenadier Guards and was posted to the 1st Battalion under the orders of the 20th Brigade in the 7th Division. Following a brief period of re-training he was sent to France disembarking there on the 12th November 1914.

He joined his Battalion at Fleurbaix, south west of Armentières on the 19th November as part of a draft of 100 men. When he arrived, it was snowing heavily and there were hard frosts and freezing conditions and when the thaw eventually came in late November the trenches turned to liquid mud.

The 7th Division continued to over-winter and rebuild its fighting strength after the grievous losses in the First Battle of Ypres where it fought the advancing German army to a standstill and was known ever after as “The Immortal Seventh”.

Harry however, was to play no part in the fighting in 1915. On Christmas Eve 1914 he reported sick at Rouen complaining of internal and external pain and was quickly evacuated back to England and admitted to the 4th General Northern Hospital at Lincoln on the 4th January 1915. 

Four days later he was diagnosed as having ‘Bright’s Disease’ or what is known today as ‘Chronic Nephritis’, a serious disease of the kidneys. 

His condition was not attributed to his military service and on the 2nd April 1915 Harry was discharged from the Army and deemed “permanently unfit for war service”.

He returned to his work as an Asylum Attendant, but over the next year his condition worsened, and Harry sadly died on Thursday, 16th July 1916. Due to his discharge from the Army and his medical assessment declaring his illness was “not attributed to military service”, Harry is not officially recognised as a casualty of the First World War.

Despite this however, he is commemorated in the London County Council Memorial Book to the Fallen of the Great War.

He is buried at Holy Trinity Churchyard in Leverstock Green.

Harry’s brother-in-law, George De Beger, his cousin Benjamin Oakley and his wife’s brother Frederick Fensome all died in the Great War. The biographies of George and Benjamin are also on this site.

Harry is also Remembered with Honour on the Hemel Hempstead War Memorial, Hemel Hempstead, Herts, United Kingdom.

He was 35 years old when he died.

Harry was entitled to the 1914-15 Star, the British War Medal and the Allied Victory Medal.