Private John Edward Grain 1st/24th (County of London) Battalion London Regiment (The Queens)

24th London Regiment

John Edward Grain was a private No. 6454 in the 1st/24th (County of London) Battalion , London Regiment (The Queens). Like so many other Leicestershire men he enlisted in Leicester into the 3rd Battalion Leicestershire Regiment (No.25192) but was transferred at a later date into another regiment. In his case The Queens.

47th Division
Insignia

He was killed in action on the Somme on Thursday 14th September 1916. The regiment was part of the 142nd Brigade, 47th Division.

In 1901 John was living with his parents William and Susan in School Street, Great Glen. William was a general labourer. Also in the household on Census night were John’s elder brother William (22), also a general labourer, his older sister Janet, a 19 year old hosiery hand and his younger sister Florence aged 7. John himself was 10 at the time

The Queens were in the Somme area and the Battalion War Diary states ‘On 10th September 1916 the Battalion moved into a forward area. The enemy bombardment was intermittent. On 11th the bombardment became very heavy and continued for three more days with resulting casualties in our positions.

John was killed on the third day.

Thiepval Memorial

He has no known grave and is commemorated on the Thiepval Memorial in the Somme area of France. Details of how to find the memorial can be found by clicking on to the Commonwealth War Graves Commission link

Close up of Panel

The close up photograph of the panel shows John’s name as 4th from the bottom of the list of names.

View of Panel

The distance photo is a view of the panel which has John’s name on it. John was entitled to the British War Medal and the Victory Medal.