Harry Frank Melton

Born: 11 October 1900

Died: 2 July 1920

Rank and Regiment: Ship’s Boy (1st Class) J51238 in the Royal Navy

Resting Place: St. Botolph’s Churchyard, Barford, Norfolk, United Kingdom

Memorials: War Memorial in St. Botolph’s Churchyard, Barford, Norfolk, United Kingdom

Harry was born in Barford on 11th October 1900. He was the son of Arthur George and Caroline Melton (nee Goodrum). It was a large family; the 1911 Census records that the Meltons had fifteen children, of whom two had died. Harry was one of the youngest; he had a younger brother Frank and a younger sister Lily.

He was one of no fewer than eight Melton children baptised on the same occasion on 1st September 1901.

Young Harry Melton was desperately keen to serve in the War. In July 1915, when he was only 14, he managed to enlist as a Private in the 3rd Battalion of the Norfolk Regiment. It appears from his later military records that he stood 5 ft 8 ½ in tall, and he was apparently able to look the Recruiting Officer in the eye and claim to be eighteen. (He was a long way from being the youngest soldier of the Great War. Sidney Lewis from Birmingham, who happened to be nearly six feet tall, managed to enlist at the age of thirteen). It took the military about two months to rumble Harry, and he was discharged from the Army in September 1915. Evidently his officers admired his pluck, for his character was described as “Very Good”.

Nothing daunted Harry, when he was 15, he signed up as a Ship’s Boy (2nd Class) on 29th March 1916. He had black hair and brown eyes. He trained in the shore establishment known as “HMS Ganges” and then saw service on HMS Agincourt (after the Battle of Jutland) and HMS Courageous. He is then recorded as being transferred to “HMS Victory I” which was another shore establishment.

Between March and May of 1917, Harry was invalided with “Tuberculosis of Lungs” and was admitted to a well-regarded sanatorium at Kelling, near Holt. This was the first sanatorium specifically for working men, of which it was written at the time:

”The Kelling Open-Air Sanatorium in Norfolk is for those who cannot afford the high fees of private sanatoria… As far as possible only early cases are admitted… The average stay of the patients is about twelve and a half weeks, and the results of the suitable cases show 69.7 per cent restored and able to earn their living five years after discharge.”

The unfortunate Harry Melton was not among the 69.7 per cent and on 2nd July 1920 he died. Despite the policy of taking “early cases” his death certificate records that he had been suffering from pulmonary tuberculosis for two years (which, to judge from the note in his naval records, may be an underestimate); he had also suffered from pulmonary haemorrhage and heart failure. He only survived his mother by a year or so.

He was buried at Barford on 7th July 1920. He is not listed as a casualty of the War by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission but it was noted with other men who contracted tuberculosis (see, for instance, Ernest Risebrook of Hardingham) that they were made more vulnerable to it by their military service. He is – deservedly – commemorated on Barford War Memorial.

St. Botolph’s Church, Barford