Harry Sear was born in Hemel Hempstead, Hertfordshire in early October 1894 and baptised just a couple of weeks later on Wednesday, 17th. He was the younger son of Walter James Sear and Sarah Ann Walker and his older brother was named for his father Walter. He had another sibling who died young. His mother Sarah Ann died in early 1917 aged forty seven and his father a year later in January 1918. When Harry was born his father was working as an "Cab Driver", but soon afterwards found work as a "Groom and Coachman". The family lived initially in Boxmoor at 11, Russell Place before moving to 18 Herbert Street when the children were still young. By the time of the 1911 Census, they had moved to 6 Bath Street in the town just opposite Marlowes (Carey) Baptist Church and on the same street as the Public Baths.

Harry left school in 1913 and went to work with John Dickinson & Co Limited in Apsley Mills where he was employed as a "Wire Sticker" and it was from here that he enlisted with the Hertfordshire Regiment three months before the outbreak of the war. He was immediately mobilised when the war started and he went to France on the 6th November 1914 as part of the "Old Contemptibles", the British Expeditionary Force. Harry saw action in the Winter Operations in early 1915 before he volunteered to retrain as a machine gunner with the newly formed Machine Gun Company (MGC). He was sent to the Machine Gun School at Wisques in France, in the Spring of 1915 and having passed his training he was posted to “C” Company in the 5th Battalion MGC late in the year.

By April 1916 Harry was with the 5th Battalion in the field and over the next three years he saw action across western France and Flanders. In early June 1918 he was in the trenches near Thiennes in France when “C” Company came under persistent heavy shelling for a number of days. At some point during this onslaught, Harry was fatally wounded and soon succumbed to his injuries.

He died on Tuesday, 4th June 1918.

He was commemorated on the John Dickinson & Co. Limited War Memorial at Apsley End where he had worked for three years before the War.

He is Remembered with Honour in Tannay British Cemetery, Thiennes, Nord, France, where he is interred in Plot 3. Row A. Grave 6. The inscription on his headstone requested by his father, Walter Sear, reads: “ONLY GONE BEFORE”

He was 24 years old when he died.

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