Banks, John
Private
No. 21051, 2nd Battalion, King’s Own (Royal Lancaster Regiment)
Died of wounds on Monday 27 August 1917 (aged 19)
Buried:
Doiran Military Cemetery, Greece (Grave III. F. 29)
Commemorated:
Commonwealth War Graves Commission
BIOGRAPHY
John Banks was born on 21 June 1898 at Orlock Hill House, Bangor and he was a son of John Thomas and Ellen Banks (nee Armitage). John Thomas Banks was born on 11 October 1867 in Leeds; Ellen Armitage was born on 28 November 1868 in Manchester, and they were married on 16 March 1895 in St Chad’s Roman Catholic Church, Manchester. In civilian life John Thomas Banks worked as a tailor before joining the Royal Navy in 1883. He transferred to the Royal Fleet Reserve (RFR) in 1905.
John Thomas Banks was a Coast Guard and he and Ellen had at least six children:
Georgina Ellen (born 12 September 1896 at Orlock)
John (born 21 June 1898 at Orlock)
James Joseph (born 14 August 1899 in Bangor Coastguard Station; after leaving school, worked as a biscuit mixer; served in the Army during the Great War)
Margaret (born 24 August 1900 in Bangor Coastguard Station)
Jane (born around 1906 in Manchester; died December 1923)
Thomas (born 27 February 1913, died 1916)
In 1901 the Banks family was living in the townland of Ballyhaskin, Carrowdore.
John Banks was working as a trolley boy when he enlisted on 7 October 1915 at Lancaster and served with the 2nd Battalion King’s Own (Royal Lancaster Regiment).
It is not clear from the Battalion’s War Diary when he received his wounds.
When Private John Banks (No. 21051) died on 27 August 1917 as the result of his wounds, his mother was living at 15 Regent Street, Miles Platting, Manchester. In other records her address appears as 15 Regent Street, Collyhurst.
Private John Banks (No. 21051) was buried in Doiran Military Cemetery, Greece and there is a personal inscription on his CWGC headstone:
ON WHOSE SOUL
SWEET JESUS HAVE MERCY
R. I. P.
During the Great War his father, John Thomas Banks, served as a Petty Officer with the Royal Navy (No. 124308) and was awarded the 1914/15 Star, the British War Medal, and the Victory Medal. He was discharged on 29 January 1919 and died of pulmonary tuberculosis on 15 April 1921. His widow Ellen was refused a pension on the grounds that the ‘disease was contracted after discharge.’