Joseph Maurice JONES (1887-1917)

2nd Lieutenant Joseph Maurice Jones (1887-1917) served with Cyril Sladden in the 9th Battalion Worcestershire Regiment in Mesopotamia.

Joseph’s background is uncertain, but it is likely that he was the Joseph Maurice Jones born in Leamington, Warwickshire, in 1887, and who was a boarding pupil at the Grammar School, Wolverley, Kidderminster, in 1901, and a bank clerk boarding in Long Eaton, Derbyshire, in 1911.

On 25th September 1915, Joseph Maurice Jones was gazetted 2nd Lieutenant in the Worcestershire Regiment. He was with the 6th Battalion but was at some point attached to the 9th Battalion.

2nd Lieutenant Jones was killed on 15th February 1917 in an unfortunate incident. Using binoculars, he was watching the army doctor, Captain Martin, administering to Captain Busby who had been hit. Captain Martin was hit, too, and then a stray bullet also hit Jones.

Cyril Sladden wrote in a letter to his fiancée, Mela Brown Constable: “Never have I known such a stroke of bad luck as we had yesterday in officers’ casualties. Three have been killed ….. The 3rd case was Jones, who joined me with Harrington at the end of December, and now both are killed in this short space of time. Jones was watching the affair through his glasses, steadying his elbow on Company Sgt-Major Wayte’s shoulder, when a stray bullet hit him in the neck, severing the artery, so that he died at once. He was such a nice fellow, so keen and interested in everything, and always cheerful and had the makings of a good officer. Three hits, like that, all fatal, seem the high water mark of sheer ill luck.” 2nd Lieutenant Jones is buried in Amara War Cemetery. At the time of his death, his home address was given as The Hollies, Norton, near Stourbridge. Probate of his will was granted to his widowed mother, Susan.