DENNISON Norman

After a long search Norman Dennison has finally been found, thanks to Isabel Fogg and Peter Bennett the WW1 project – Dewsbury sacrifices.

The research is not my own but has been provided by Peter and explains how Norman ended up on the Whittington memorials. Although they came from Middlesborough, his family ended up living at Holland Road Broomhill Park, his father employed by Sheepbridge Works. I assume they were living there around 1916 when Norman died and this is presumably why his name was added to the war memorials here. Its nice to finally find him and be able to give you his story.

William Norman Mitcheson Dennison 1897 – 1916

Norman, as he was known, was born in Middlesbrough in 1897. His father was Frederick William Mitcheson Dennison, an ironworks labourer, later a puddler, who had been born in Spennymoor, County Durham in 1868 and died in 1942. His mother was Ann (nee Geldart) born in Durham City in 1868 and died in 1941. They were married in Middlesbrough in 1896.

Their other children were; Frederick Robertson Mitcheson Dennison, born in Middlesbrough in 1899, Annie Elizabeth Mitcheson Dennison, born in Thornaby-on-Tees, County Durham in 1905, Edith Lilian Mitcheson Dennison, born in Sheepbridge, Chesterfield, Derbyshire in 1911.

On the 1901 Census the family lived at 10, Simpson Street, Thornaby-on-Tees, in 1911 at 82, Holland Road, Sheepbridge, Chesterfield. At the time of Norman’s death, they lived at 10, Bank Road, Thornhill Lees. The 1921 Census records show that his parents and sisters had moved back to the Chesterfield area and were living at 185, Holland Road, Old Whittington, a village adjacent to Sheepbridge. They must have put forward Norman’s name for commemoration as he is named on the War Memorials in both villages. His entry in the Dewsbury Roll of Honour gives an address of 3, Cardigan Road, Thornhill Lees, which may have been the address of his brother Frederick (Fred) who had married and lived in the Dewsbury area for the remainder of his life.

Norman was a single man who worked as an improver at Ashworth’s Engineering Works in Staincliffe Road, Dewsbury. He attended Holy Innocents School in Thornhill Lees and attended the Church and Sunday school.

He enlisted in August 1915 with the Service Number 4528 into the 1st/5th Battalion Duke of Wellington’s (West Riding Regiment) rising to the rank of Lance Corporal and was sent to the Western Front on 7th August 1916. His Service Number was later changed to 241342. He was killed in action during the Battle of the Somme on 3rd September 1916 at Thiepval on a Salient known as the “Pope’s Nose”. He was buried in Mill Road Cemetery, Thiepval, Somme, France. Norman was awarded the British War Medal and the Victory Medal.

Thiepval is a village about 8 kilometres north of the town of Albert. On the 1st July 1916 the 36th (Ulster) Division were detailed to attack the German positions north of Thiepval, known as the Hansa Line and the Schwaben Redoubt. It would take until 26th September 1916 before the village finally fell. It then remained under Allied occupation until 25th March 1918, when it was lost during the great German offensive, but was retaken on the following 24th August. Mill Road Cemetery (called at one time Mill Road Cemetery No.2) was made during the spring of 1917. At the Armistice, it contained 260 burials, but was then greatly enlarged when graves were brought in from the battlefields of Beaumont-Hamel and Thiepval and from smaller cemeteries. There are now 1,304 Commonwealth servicemen of the First World War buried or commemorated in the cemetery. 815 of the burials are unidentified. The headstones in Plot 1 were laid flat in the early 1950s because the site was subject to subsidence between the wars as a result of it being sited above the infamous Schwaben Redoubt.

Norman is commemorated on the Dewsbury Cenotaph in Crow Nest Park and in the Dewsbury Roll of Honour kept in Dewsbury Central Library and on the War Memorial in Holy Innocents Church, Thornhill Lees and on the War Memorials of Sheepbridge and Old Whittington near Chesterfield, Derbyshire and on the War Memorial Board in St. Bartholomew’s Church, Old Whittington.

Normans Medal card