PRYCE John Percival

The following report appears in Berrow’s Worcester Journal, Saturday 24th August 1918. Unfortunately the left hand edge of the report is within the binding of the volume and certain words are therefore missing. Some of the words can be ‘guessed’ from later parts of the report:
Miss Stevenson, 34 Knight St, St ???, Worcester, has been informed that her ??? Sergt. P. Pryce, Worcesters, has been ???ously killed by a trench mortar ??? while he was serving in the front line in ???. He joined the Army on May 24, 1915, ??? to France in February 1916. He was invalided home in November, 1917, and returned to France on April 15 of this year. ??? to joining the Army, he was employed by Mr Thornton, jeweller, St John’s. ??? of sympathy from the Chaplain says, “??? his life for a world’s freedom, and ??? to his reward. I laid his body ??? a little military cemetery a few miles ??? the firing line.” Miss Stevenson had ??? ??ers on active service. One, William, ??? Worcester, reported wounded a week ???, has had to have his left arm amputated above the elbow. The youngest, Sydney ??? Durhams, previously reported missing is now a prisoner of war in Germany.

A photograph of Sergeant P. Pryce of Worcester can be found in Berrow’s Worcester Journal Supplement, Saturday 24th August 1918, available at Worcestershire Archives.

The following information on Sergeant John Percival Pryce has been researched by and is courtesy of Nia Griffiths and Nick Venti, Llanidloes & District in the Great War:
Sergeant John Percival Pryce (241348), 2nd Battalion, Worcester Regiment, was born in Llanidloes in May 1890. He was known as Percy to his friends and family.
He died near Ypres, on 7 August 1918, at the age of 28.

Percy’s Llanidloes address was the family business, Bank House Shop, in High Street. His address in Worcester is not known. He was the youngest surviving child of Charles Edwin Pryce and his second wife, Elizabeth. The Pryce family were prominent business people in Llanidloes. Charles Edwin Pryce ran a grocery business in Llanidloes for forty years and played a leading role in the local community. He was staunchly Liberal, a prominent Baptist and a governor of the County School. His first wife Margaret committed suicide in 1881 when, it was reported, she was not of sound mind. Charles married Elizabeth three years later.

Percy had several older step-siblings from his father’s first marriage including two step brothers and three step-sisters. He also had two older brothers from his father’s second marriage, Gwilym Oswald and Richard Edwin. The youngest child of the family, a daughter, had died in 1897 aged five. Percy’s brother Gwilym also served in the war, in France and Mesopotamia.

Llanidloes was shocked in December 1916 when Charles Edwin, by now a widower for the second time, died suddenly while serving a customer at the counter of his shop. The Montgomeryshire Express carried a long obituary notice. It stated that at this time, two of his sons were serving in the War: Gwilym was able to return for his father’s funeral but Percy was away fighting in France and unable to attend.

Percy was a jeweller by profession and was working in Worcester prior to the war. His sister Annie’s husband, William Henry Rees, was also a jeweller and watchmaker in Llanidloes so it is likely he learnt his trade from his brother in law. Percy was evidently close to all his siblings, as the final payments made on his military accounts are credited to all six of his surviving siblings and the child of his late sister. This is in contrast to the usual practice of the payment going to a single beneficiary from within a soldier’s family.

Percy’s death occurred in the trench systems around Poperinghe – Ypres, when the explosion of a trench mortar killed him instantaneously. By the time of his death he had been out in France for over two years. He had enlisted in Worcester in June 1915 and gone out to France in February 1916. He was promoted to Sergeant just two months before his death and had already been wounded and gassed twice before. His sisters in Llanidloes received a letter from his army chaplain giving details of his death.

Percy is buried in Hagle Dump Cemetery, near Ypres. In Llanidloes he is listed on the town war memorial and also on the County School memorial, which is now in the foyer of Llanidloes High School.

Gwilym Pryce called his son John Percival Pryce, and this name lived on in Llanidloes until May 2013 when the second John Percival died aged ninety-three.