John Thomas Scase

Born: 1879

Died: 22 October 1916

Rank and Regiment: Private 20478 in the 10th Battalion of the Essex Regiment

Resting Place: body unrecovered

Memorials: St. George’s, Hardingham, United Kingdom and; Thiepval Memorial, France.

He was born in Hingham in 1879. He was the younger of two natural sons of Mary Ann Scase, who had been born in 1857. Mary and her sons were in the Forehoe Union workhouse at Wicklewood in the 1881 Census. She married John Balaam, a farm labourer, on September 22, 1883 in Hingham. Her marriage certificate reveals that she was unable to sign her name.

By 1891, the family were living at Low Farm, Hardingham, and John and William, who appear to have been using the name Balaam, had been joined by a little sister Ellen Louisa (or “Louisa” as she was known by the time of the 1901 Census).

In 1901 they were living in Hackford Road, Hardingham; Charles Balaam, who was also to be killed in the Great War, appears in that household as a boy of 6.

By 1911, John has moved away from Hardingham, though according to that year’s Census we find the rest of the family still resident.

John’s war record describes him as having been resident in Attleborough, but he does not appear there on the 1911 Census. (Several records from the 1911 Census refer to “Hardingham, Attleborough, Norfolk”; and the enlistment papers of Ralph Wace, brother of Francis, give his address as “Attleborough” even though he lived at Coston.)

The Hardingham War Memorial Register records that John enlisted in the 3rd Battalion, the Essex Regiment, in December 1914, and he was sent to the Dardanelles in October 1915.

John’s enlistment papers have been lost, but we have William Scase’s, which tell us that he stood only 5 ft 3½ in tall. William was called up in April 1916, and served in the Royal Veterinary Corps. He was to survive the Great War, being demobilised in January 1919.

Mary did not live to see her sons taken by the Great War; she was buried at Hardingham on 1st May 1915, so when John was killed in 1916 his pitifully meagre effects, amounting to no more than £2 3s 2d., were received by his stepfather James Balaam.

The 10th Battalion of the Essex Regiment was involved in the Battle of the Somme, and from the 17th to the 23rd October 1916 was in the front line North West of Courcelette, taking part in the fight for the Regina Trench, the longest of the German trenches on the Somme battlefield. And there, on the 22nd October 1916, John Scase was reported missing in action, presumed killed. His body was never found and he is commemorated at the Thiepval Memorial.
Thiepval Memorial, France