John Groome was born in Hemel Hempstead, Hertfordshire in 1871, the fifth son and child of William Groom and Maria Dell. He was baptised on Good Friday, 26th March 1875 in St Mary’s Church in the town along with three of his older brothers, William, Herman and George. His eldest sibling was in fact a half-brother Harry Dell and he had two younger sisters, Jane and Isabella. Jane died a year after she was born in 1875 and his father William, who was a “Carpenter”, died aged forty-four in 1879 leaving Maria to raise the six children.

The family lived on Bury Road and by 1891 John’s Grandmother Elizabeth Dell was living with the family and like Mara working as a “Charwoman”. John and his brothers Herman and George were all bringing a wage into the home, Herman as a “Coach Builder’s Labourer”, Herman as a “Groom” and John as a “Watercress Labourer”.

By this time John had found a sweetheart, Emma Hobs who lived a few doors away and worked in John Dickinson & Co Limited. John and Emma married on Sunday, 4th August 1895 in St Mary’s Church on the High Street, where they were both living. A few year later, in 1901 John was a “Boarder” with the Ellen Goodyear at Cross Oak Road in Berkhamsted, where he had gone to work as a “Watercress Cutter”.

By the time of the next census in 1911 he and Emma were together again and living at 4 Austin’s Place just off the High Street in Hemel Hempstead where one of Emma’s brothers, John Hobbs also lived with them.

On the outbreak of war, John was forty-four but despite being overage to volunteer, he went to Watford in December where he attested and enlisted with the Bedfordshire Regiment. He was posted to the 6th Battalion at Salisbury Plain for basic training, firs at Andover and then in April 1915 at Cholderton. He left English shores at 6.30pm on the 29th July 1915 aboard the “SS Empress Queen” and disembarked at Le Havre in France at 7 am on the 30th. The Battalion then gathered supplies, formed up with its Division around St Omer, before moving forward to the front line.

Fore the rest of the year and the first six months of 1916, John spent time in the trenches and performing the normal duties of a frontline soldier in the Great War. Then in mid-July, the 6th Battalion engaged in its first significant action in the Battle of Bazentin Ridge, part of the first phase of the Somme Offensive.

The action commenced on the 14th July and for three days the German positions were attacked with some early success. The 6th Beds were attacked at Pozières, but heavy German machine gun fire held them up about one hundred yards short of the objective and it was forced to dig in.

The Battalion War Diaries record the result of the attack which incurred significant casualties as follows: “Casualties (3 Offs Killed, 32 O.R. Killed) (25 missing) (9 Offrs. Wounded, 174 O.R. Wounded)”. These losses represented about a quarter of the Battalion’s fighting strength at the time. Sadly, John was one of the men who fell during the Battle.

He was Killed in Action on Saturday, 16th July 1916.

A brief notice of his death appeared in the Hemel Gazette on the 29th July 1916 naming him as John Groom. There appears to have been some inconsistency in the spelling of his surname on census and military records, but where John signed his name, for instance on the marriage register, he signed as “Groome” and this is reflected on his military records. His name on the Hemel Hempstead War Memorial is therefore incorrectly inscribed “Groom”.

Following his death, Emma married again in 1919 when she was fifty-four years old, to George Clark at St Paul’s Church on Queen Street.

John was commemorated on the War Memorial plaque in St Mary’s church in Hemel Hempstead where he had been baptised, married and worshipped.

He is Remembered with Honour in Pozieres British Cemetery, Ovillers-La Boisselle, Somme, France, where he is interred in Grave III.D.6.

John was 46 years old when he died.

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