1/5th Battalion Gloucestershire Regiment
Tyne Cot Memorial
John Herbert Charles White was a former Cirencester Grammar School boy, who went on to be a solicitor’s clerk in Cirencester, prior to joining the 1/5th Glosters upon the outbreak of war. He was a grenadier with ‘B’ company, when 1/5 Glosters first went to France on 29 March 1915. The battalion was involved in fierce fighting around Ovillers and Pozieres, on the Somme, in July and August 1916 and in the following month, Corporal White was awarded the Military Medal for meritorious conduct
On the morning of 16 August 1917, the battalion was in action at St Julien in the Ypres Salient. Corporal White was killed in action whilst leading a Lewis Gun team in an attack. His company commander said of him, “I cannot speak in high enough terms of his splendid courage, and leadership and more especially on this morning”. He was 21 years of age.
Corporal John Herbert Charles White has no known grave and is commemorated on the Tyne Cot Memorial and on the Cirencester Parish Church Memorial.
His parents John and Anne White, of Ashcroft Road, Cirencester, added his name to the family grave at the Chesterton Cemetery in Cirencester, which is now, sadly, in disrepair.