Royal Engineers
John Joseph Barrow was born at Salford, Lancashire, in 1882, the son of Alexander Barrow and Sarah Ann (née Coleman).
Prior to the war he was a plate layer on the railways and moved to Cheltenham to join the Charlton Kings section of the Great Western Railway Company. He helped to construct the multi-arched viaduct at East End, London Road, which spanned the road at Dowdeswell.
On 9 December 1911 he married Edith Parrott of Shurdington and they lived in a cottage owned by the Railway Company in Croft Road, Charlton Kings where they had two children, a daughter followed by a son.
John volunteered to serve in the Royal Engineers in June 1915 and spent three years and forty-nine days as a soldier, much of the time in Egypt, where he contracted tuberculosis.
Invalided home in 1918, he returned to Cheltenham where he was hospitalised at The Priory Volunteer Aid Detachment Hospital between March and August. He was discharged from the Army on 9 August 1918 and sent home as incurable.
Sapper Barrow died on 6 May 1921 aged 39, and is buried in the New Burial Ground, Horsefair Street, Charlton Kings in War Grave Plot No 3, Grave 54.
Taken from Leaving all that was dear – Cheltenham in the Great War by J Devereux and G Sacker)
Researched by Graham Adams