28-year-old Corporal Harold James Harvie died in Italy on 17th October 1918 serving with the 48th Divisional Ammunition Column, Royal Field Artillery. He died in hospital as a result of pneumonia following influenza and is buried at Montecchio Precalcino Communal Cemetery Extension, Italy.
Born in Liverpool on 27th December 1889, he was the only son of parents Daniel James (a Captain with the Bombay Pilot Service) and Emma (née Shaw), who had married at Walton-on-the-Hill, Lancashire in 1886.
It seems that the family returned to India, as they do not appear to be recorded on census returns 1901 and 1911. Daniel Harvie drowned on 23rd July 1906 when the schooner he was piloting was lost in a gale.
In 1911, 21-year-old Harold James Harvie emigrated to Canada, sailing from Liverpool and giving his occupation as a medical student. In 1913, he married Winifred May Hunter in Canada, and they had one daughter, Mildred Winifred Harvie (1913-2002). It seems that he returned to England and stayed with his mother at Willows Crescent, Cannon Hill, Birmingham, which is the address given on probate records.
His widow, Winifred, and daughter appear to have lived with her parents in Canada, being recorded in their home at the time of the 1921 census. Winifred and Mildred seem to have visited Harold’s mother, Emma, in Birmingham in October 1923, a few weeks before her death on Christmas Eve, 1923. Emma Harvie died at The Poplars, School Lane, Shirley is buried at Rake Gate Cemetery, Wallasey, Merseyside, with her gravestone also commemorating her husband and son.
It’s unclear what connection the family had with Shirley, but Harold James Harvie is commemorated on Shirley war memorial.
If you have any further information, please let us know.
Tracey
Heritage & Local Studies Librarian
tel.: 0121 704 6977
email: heritage@solihull.gov.uk
Solihull Life 
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