1st Battalion Gloucestershire Regiment
Henry Berry was born in Gloucester on 8 January 1883 and was educated at St Mark’s School.
At the age of 16 in 1899, he enlisted in the Gloucestershire Regiment and subsequently served with distinction during the Boer War when he was awarded the Queen’s Medal.
Between 1902 and 1909, Henry continued to serve overseas with the Gloucestershire Regiment in St Helena and India where he made a name for himself playing rugby for the regiment.
Coming out of the army in 1909, he returned to Gloucester where he joined the rugby club and became a star forward earning a call up to the England side of 1910, playing in all the Five Nations games of that year.
When war broke out, Henry was recalled to service and went overseas on 2 February 1915, three months later on 9 May he was involved in the devastating Battle for Aubers Ridge. Going over the top at 16:00 the Glosters along with the South Wales Borderers were soon decimated by machine gun fire, between them the two regiments lost 495 men, one of whom was Henry Berry.
Corporal Henry Berry’s body was never found and his name appears on the Le Touret Memorial. He left behind him his wife Beatrice and two daughters, the youngest of which – Phyllis, wasn’t even a month old.