Percy Stanley INKSON b. 11 Jul 1870 Burnham, Norfolk
Percy Stanley was the fourth son [ninth child of fifteen (!)] of Thomas Harborow b. 16 Dec 1834 and Martha née Garner who married on 16 Mar 1856. He never married as far as we know and was killed in WWI.
Percy was born in Burnham Sutton where his father was the station master. For a long time we didn't know his date of birth because the Civil Registration Birth Index of the General Register Office has him incorrectly indexed as Percy Stanley 'Tukson'. His actual date of birth, shown on the register of births, was the 11th of July 1870 :
He was baptised in Aylsham, 17km north of Norwich, on 29 Sep 1870. Aylsham was where Emma Bezant WRIGHT came from, the future wife of Thomas Henry, Thomas and Martha's first son [the Forgotten Son] but in 1870 Thomas Henry was only 14 and Emma Bezant was only 12 [they only married in 1876] so why was the family in Aylsham in September 1870?
The 1871 and 1881 censuses show the young Percy at home in Burnham Sutton but by the time of the 1891 census he was boarding with a family in Melford, Suffolk, 3km north of Sudbury and working as a printer-compositor. A compositor was a typesetter - who had to be able to think back-to-front to put all the letters and punctuation in the right place - and that had to be done at some speed! A skilled job for sure. His landlord, one Ezra Mayhew, was a railway platelayer so perhaps known to Thomas Harborow who was the station master at Burnham Sutton [albeit a 100km north of Sudbury].
However, we know that Percy was already working in Sudbury in 1886 : the Sudbury Freemen's Society reports that, in that year on Mayor's Day [November 9th], young Percy Inkson, aged 15, an apprentice at ‘The Free Press’, had a nasty burn on the skin of his left palm from a large squib going off in his hand.
There is also an old photograph of the composing staff of the Suffolk and Essex Free Press which was taken at around this time. It shows six men, including Percy Inkson and the caption states that Percy played football for Sudbury Town :
By the time of the 1901 census Percy was in London and noted as working as a compositor. He was staying with his big sister Lottie G [now married to Harry Dainty and with a family of her own] but it is not clear whether he was visiting or boarding as he is noted as being the 'cousin' of Harry Dainty. The 1911 census return shows that he was then staying with another of his older sisters, Alice [now married to Thomas Plumb and again with a family of her own]. He is noted as a compositor working for W H Smith.
At some unknown point Percy joined the Army Service Corps [later to become the Royal Army Service Corps], the same corps as his older brother Harry Garner who had died during the second Boer War and his younger brother Arthur Edward. It is presumed that this was after the start of WWI but no date of joining is available [60% of army records were lost during bombing in WWII]. He was killed accidentally on December 3rd 1916. It is rumoured that he was killed in an explosion at an ammunition dump but that has not been verified :
Percy is buried in Janval cemetery, Dieppe :
