Private John Parr – the first British death on the Western Front

One hundred years ago today, 21st August 1914, the first British soldier is believed to have died on the Western Front.

John Henry Parr was the son of a milkman from Finchley, London. He joined the army in 1912, giving his age as 17, although the census a year earlier shows him as 13 years old in 1911. He was baptised at St John’s Church, Holloway on 4th September 1898. He would, therefore, have been about 14 years of age when he joined the Army in 1912 as a Private with the Middlesex Regiment.

By the time war broke out in 1914, he was a reconnaissance cyclist, obtaining information to take back to senior officers. On 21st August 1914, John Parr was sent out on patrol and was never seen again, although it took some months for his family to be told. His gravestone gives his age as 20 but he was actually about 17.

In 1921, a national memorial to all cyclists who died as a result of their war service was erected in the Centre of  England – Meriden, now in the Borough of Solihull.

Private Parr was particularly remembered at the Cyclists’ Memorial Service held in May 2014, marking one hundred years after the outbreak of the First World War.

A memorial service for cyclists who died in the war has been held at Meriden every year since the memorial was unveiled in 1921. This British Pathé film clip shows the 1950 event.