The early life of John Hookway seems destined to be lost to time. He was born in 1876 or 1877 in Lancashire, and the only surviving 1881 census featuring that name would suggest his parents were James, who was a shoeing smith, and Leah Hookway.

The next census on which John appears is in 1911. This confirms that John had married a widow called Rose Ash the year before. They were living in Huntspill, Somerset, with Rose’s three children – daughters Rose, Violet and Lily – and her sister, Emily. John was employed as an ‘improver in grocery trade’, while Violet, who was 17 years old, was noted as being a ‘servant on the Isle of Wight’. Violet’s sister, Rose, the census recorded, was ‘feebleminded’, while Emily was identified as an ‘imbecile’.

When war broke out, John stepped up to enlist. His age may have excluded him from any compulsion to join up – he was nearly 40 years old when he signed his attestation papers in December 1915. This may suggest that he had served in the army before, hence the absence from the 1891 and 1901 census records.

Private Hookway’s service records noted that he was a grocer, and that he had been born in Devon, although this is at odds with other, earlier, documents. He was 5ft 4ins (1.64m) tall and weighed 137lbs (62.1kg). He was assigned to the Somerset Light Infantry, and he joined the 13th (Home Service) Battalion. As the name suggests, John saw no action overseas, and his time appears to have been split between Somerset and Suffolk.

John’s time in the army was not without issue. In September 1916, he was admitted to a local Volunteer Aid Detachment Hospital with appendicitis, which saw him laid up for more than six weeks. In November 1918, the war having come to an end, Private Hookway was sent to the 2nd Southern General Hospital in Bristol, Gloucestershire, with an aneurysm of the abdominal aorta. This was, understandably, severe enough for him to be discharged from the army, and he was formally stood down on 12th March 1919.

John returned home to be with his family. The next record for him is that of his passing, on 4th June 1919. He was around 43 years of age.

John Hookway was laid to rest in Highbridge Cemetery, Somerset. Rose, who had now been widowed twice in ten years, never remarried. She was laid to rest near her second husband when she passed in 1946.

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