Bernard family at Brook House

John Bernard Private 2262 - 1st Battalionn. Welsh Guards Died Wednesday 31st January 1917 age 22 Buried Grove Town Cemetery, Meaulte, Somme. France John’s father, Stephen Bernard (born, christened, and worked in Gnosall) married Julia Williams in Blackpool in 1877. On the 1881 census they had moved to Rowley Street in Stafford. Then in 1891 they had moved in with Stephen’s widowed father Benjamin at Bridge House in Gnosall with their 5 children: Isabella, Benjamin, Catherine, Elizabeth and 3 years old John John Bernard’s family were mostly plumbers, painters and glaziers (although his paternal great-grandfather was a shoemaker). John himself was a painter by trade, as was his brother Benjamin and his father Stephen. The low lying Bridge House was prone to flooding, and was eventually pulled down. On the side of the road opposite to the house site the brook was ‘Doley Brook’. However, on the side where the house had stood, it became known as ‘Bernard's Brook’. John Bernard died on Wednesday 31st January 1917 age 22. He is buried at Grove Town Cemetery, Meaulte, Somme. France

Grove Town Cemetery, Meaulte, Somme Historical Information In September 1916, the 34th and 2/2nd London Casualty Clearing Stations were established at this point, known to the troops as Grove Town, to deal with casualties from the Somme battlefields. They were moved in April 1917 and, except for a few burials in August and September 1918, the cemetery was closed. Grove Town Cemetery contains 1,395 First World War burials.