230725 L/Cpl. Gervase Litton British Army 11th Btn. Manchester Regiment from:Heaton Park, Manchester (d.11th Jan 1917) Gervase Litton was a postman. He joined up in May 1916 and commenced his duty with the 4th Manchester Battalion. He wrote his will at the end of that month. He appears to have then been attached to the 11th Manchesters with whom he crossed to France. Sadly, there is no further information about him until notice of his death in January 1917. His body remains unfound and my grandfather is remembered on the Thiepval Memorial - one of the 72000 missing on the Somme. He died, it would seem, in a late skirmish on the Ancre, along with 82 other soldiers that day, all lives wasted. When I see the Tomb of the Unknown Warrior in Westminster Abbey, I dream it could be him. Gervase was 34 years old and the father of four children, my father, Francis Gervais, being the youngest.
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