Uprichard, Henry Albert (Albert)
Major
13th Battalion Royal Irish Rifles
Killed in action on Saturday 1 July 1916 (aged 36)
Buried:
Mill Road Cemetery, Thiepval, France (Grave X.C.8)
Commemorated:
Commonwealth War Graves Commisssion
Royal North of Ireland Yacht Club Memorial Plaque
Royal Ulster Yacht Club, Bangor
Royal County Down Golf Club, Newcastle, Co. Down
Major Uprichard Memorial Orange Hall, Tullylish
Leighton Park School
BIOGRAPHY
The Uprichard family owned the Springvale Bleachworks, Tullylish and in the 1800s lived in Bannvale House, Gilford.
Henry Albert Uprichard was born on 30 May 1880 in Lawrencetown House and he was a son of Henry Albert and Emily Uprichard (nee Green) who were married on 5 August 1875 in Belfast. Emily Green was a daughter of Forster Green who established the firm Forster Green & Co., tea and coffee merchants.
Henry Albert and Emily Uprichard (nee Green) had five children before Emily died of tuberculosis:
Mary Green (born 11 March 1877 in Lawrencetown House)
William Forster (Willie, born 6 June 1878 in Lawrencetown House)
Henry Albert (Albert, born 30 May 1880 in Lawrencetown House)
Forster Green (born 27 June 1883 in Lawrencetown House)
Emile Llewellyn (born 12 October 1887)
Emily Uprichard died of tuberculosis on 25 October 1887 (aged 34) and she was one of seven of Forster Green’s children to die of the disease. It was the deaths of seven of his children from tuberculosis that prompted Forster Green to establish the Forster Green Hospital at Newtownbreda.
Emily Uprichard was buried in Friends Burial Ground, Moyallan, Co Down.
Henry Albert Uprichard married Beatrice Taylor and they had one daughter, Beatrice Eileen (born 17 January 1899 at Elmfield, Gilford)
At Elmfield the Uprichard family had a polo field, two tennis courts (one grass, one all-weather), a badminton hall and roller-skating rink together with a replica of the Punchestown racecourse laid out in the grounds.
Albert Uprichard was educated at Leighton Park Quaker School in Reading and then he worked in his grandfather’s company, Forster Green & Co., tea and coffee merchants, eventually becoming Managing Director.
Albert Uprichard was a keen sportsman and member of the Royal North of Ireland Yacht Club at Cultra. He was well-known as a polo player and rider at point-to-point and steeplechase meetings. He hunted regularly with the County Down Staghounds and the Iveagh Harriers, of which he became Master.
Prior to the First World War Albert Uprichard was Commander of the 2nd Battalion of the West Down Regiment of the Ulster Volunteer Force.
During the Great War, Major Henry Albert Uprichard served with the 13th Battalion Royal Irish Rifles and he was 36 when he was killed in action on the first day of the Battle of the Somme. He was buried in Mill Road Cemetery, Thiepval, France and is commemorated on the memorial plaque in the Royal North of Ireland Yacht Club at Cultra; in the Major Uprichard Memorial Orange Hall, Tullylish and, as an Old Leightonian, in Leighton Park School.