Harold GOSS

02 July 1915

SETTLE MAN HOME FROM THE TRENCHES

Mr. Charles Reiley, who is a Private in the Scottish Borderers, and has been in France since the commencement of the war, came home to Settle on Saturday evening last for a short leave. He looked the picture of health and appeared in high spirits. He is the brother-in-law of Mr. Harold Goss, greengrocer, etc. of Chapel Street, Settle. He returned on Wednesday morning. Several gentlemen in the district hired a motorcar and took Reiley to Hellifield Station. When he was leaving Settle those who happened to be in the know gave him a hearty send-off. He is going straight to the trenches.

27 July 1917

GOSS – Killed in action, Pte. Harold Goss, of the Northumberland Fusiliers, husband of Mrs. Goss, of Settle, aged 36.

27 July 1917

SETTLE – PTE. HAROLD GOSS KILLED

The sad news has been received by Mrs. Goss that her husband, Pte. Harold Goss, of the Northumberland Fusiliers, has been killed in action. A letter from the chaplain states:– “Your husband was much liked and very popular with the men and officers of his company, and I will always look upon it as an honour to have been permitted to be chaplain to such a fine fellow, for whom all his comrades have a good and kind word to say. He was killed instantly by a German shell on the back of his head and in the back, so you can have the comfort, such as it is, that your husband died instantly, without any suffering. The next day some of his comrades when they came out of the trenches, brought his body down on a stretcher and I buried him in a beautiful little cemetery just on the outskirts of the village near which we are encamped. I took exactly the same service as is taken at home in England. His chum was there and several other of his comrades. I am sorry for you Mrs. Goss, and I hope God will give you the strength and courage to bear up under your great sorrow. You must try and find comfort in the thought that your husband was a brave man, loved and respected by his comrades, and that while he was out here he was always thinking of you and the children. You must try to look forward to the day when you and he will meet once more in the great world above where sorrow, partings, and death, will be no more.” There has also been a nice letter from his captain. Pte. Goss was 36 years of age, a married man with a wife and five children. In private life he was a greengrocer, and was well-known in the surrounding district. When his group was called up he answered, and he has made the supreme sacrifice. Before coming to Settle he served his time with Messrs. Green, of Leeds, as a mechanic.

16 November 1917

SETTLE

ACCIDENT – On Tuesday last an accident occurred to a little girl, daughter of Mrs. Goss, of Chapel Street, she being knocked down and run over by a horse and trap driven by Mr. John Hunter, of Stockdale. Fortunately no limbs were broken, though the wheel passed over the child’s arm, which was bruised, and her head slightly cut.

[This article concerns the daughter of Pte. Harold Goss.]

04 January 1918

SETTLE’S FALLEN HEROES

Memorial Service at the Parish Church

A memorial service for the Settle soldiers who have fallen in the war was held at the Parish Church last Sunday afternoon. There was a large congregation, and the service was conducted by Rev. W. E. Linney (vicar). The hymns ‘God of the living in Whose eyes,’ ‘Jesus lives,’ ‘On the resurrection morn,’ and ‘ O God our help in aged past’ were sung, and the ‘Last Post’ was sounded at the close of the service by two of the local Cadets. The organist (Mr. F. Lord) also played appropriate music as the congregation assembled and left the church.

The Vicar, in the course of his sermon, said they were met to remember the Settle soldiers, men, and boys – some indeed little more than boys – who had laid down their lives for the country at the war, whether during the year which was just drawing to a close or in the earlier stages of the conflict. When he asked them to remember those heroes that day, he knew that he was asking them to do what they were always doing. They were their own dear ones united to many of them by ties of blood – husbands, fathers, brothers, sons, as well as friends. How could they forget them? Were they not reminded of them day by day by the gaps in their home circles, which could never again be filled by them? They all desired in their hearts that God would bless and keep them, and give them peace. and happiness. The Vicar then read the following list of the Settle men who had laid down their lives:– John Edward Bell, Geo. S. Belles, Fredk. Baldwin, John Barrett, Robert Bateson, William Bradley, Frank Bulcock, George R. Bullock, Herbert Clark, John Cokell, Edward Ellershaw, Jas. Ewart, Wm. Ewart, Fredk. Frost, Harold Goss, Alfred Gower, Joseph Lord, John Morphet, John Packard, Chas. Peachey, Thomas Howarth Preston, Albert Ralph, Thos. Stackhouse, George Edward Turner, Derwent Turnbull, Wm. Troughton, Harry Walton, John Edward Wilson, Ernest Wooff, and Robert Wooff. Proceeding, the Vicar said they had a responsibility with regard to those men. They owed them a debt, and he trusted and believed that they were wishful to do all that they could to repay it. “ Our lives are being saved by their death. If we have any future before us on the earth it is because they gave up their futures to secure it. Their right to survive was as good as our own. Many of them would have been of far more use in the world than we can hope to be. The future stands to be only poorer for our surviving in their stead. We are debtors to them for all they have given us. To the future think of all it has lost in them.” How were they going to pay the debt, and in paying it to honour their heroic dead? Surely there could be but one answer – to live to give effect to their ideals. When they were asked what those ideals were, they might be well put in the words of Bishop Walshaw How’s hymn written for the diamond jubilee of Queen Victoria, “To make the world a better world for man’s brief earthly dwelling.” If Prussian militarism should gain the ascendancy the world would be scarcely a fit place to live in. What they wanted was the triumph of right and liberty. That was the task they had begun, and many of them, fired by the enthusiasm of a noble cause, literally went singing to their death. The old life which had no loftier aim than a high standard of material comfort had been felt to be unsatisfactory. To ardent youth the higher spirit of self-sacrifice, which was the spirit of Christ, beckoned onward with irresistible attractiveness, and they followed the gleam. They had yet to complete the great task to which they dedicated themselves. That was the way they could honour the memory of their fallen heroes, and with confidence that they had not died in vain.

A collection taken on behalf of the Red Cross Society realised £5 15s.