Hedley James Garfield Perry was born in Camborne, Cornwall in the autumn of 1898. One of nine children, his parents were John and Thurza Perry. John was a farm labourer, and the family lived in a semi-detached cottage at 15 Tehidy Road, to the north of the town centre.

Hedley was under age when war broke out, but it is clear that he wanted to play his part. His service records are long since lost, but he had enlisted in the Devonshire Regiment by the spring of 1918. Private Perry’s unit – the 9th (Service) Battalion – was involved in the final advance on Picardy in the last weeks of the war, and it was during this time that he was wounded.

Private Perry was medically evacuated to Britain for treatment, and he was admitted to a military hospital in Gillingham, Dorset. Hedley’s injuries would prove too severe, however, and he succumbed to them on 4th December 1918, just three weeks after the Armistice was signed. He was 20 years of age.

The body of Hedley James Garfield Perry was laid to rest in Gillingham Cemetery.

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