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Enoch Owen
22986, Private, 23rd Manchester Regiment
Died of wounds, 27 July 1916, aged 32
Buried at Abbeville Communal Cemetery, France
CWGC registered (Son of Sarah and the late William Owen, of 147, Mostyn St, Llandudno, Carnarvonshire)
HE HAD ONE LIFE AND THAT HE GAVE ALL IN EXCHANGE FOR A SOLDIER’S GRAVE
Enoch Owen was born in Llandudno on 3 July 1885. He was the son of William P Owen and Sarah Owen (née Williams). The 1891 Census records the family living at 118 Mostyn Street, Llandudno, William Owen being described as a pier-head porter and Enoch a scholar. Enoch attended St. George’s National School and Lloyd Street School. In 1897 and 1900, Enoch was up before the Llandudno magistrates. He received a birching for the first offence but after the second, he was sentenced to spend up to his 19th birthday in a reformatory school. His trade was recorded as that of a bottle cleaner. The local newspapers which reported the cases with some zeal gave his address in 1900 as Prospect Street.
The 1901 Census records Enoch (15) as being an inmate at the Glamorgan County Reformatory School at Neath. The same census records the rest of his family living at “Haslemere Masonic Cottage”, Bodhyfryd Road, Llandudno. Ten years later, Enoch Owen was living in a lodging house at Hay on Wye; he was described as a collier. His family now lived at “Granton House”, Tudno Street, Llandudno.
Enoch’s military record has been destroyed but Soldiers Died in the Great War records that he enlisted at Manchester into the 23rd (Service) Battalion (8th City Pals) of the Manchester Regiment. His regimental number of 22986 indicates that he enlisted in March 1915. The 23rd Manchesters had been raised at Manchester in November 1914 as a Bantam Battalion which suggests that Enoch was less than 5’3” tall. The battalion had moved to Morecambe in December 1914. In June 1915, it moved to Masham in Yorkshire and then to Salisbury Plain in August 1915. It landed at Boulogne in January 1916, entering the front line near Béthune on 7 March.
It is recorded that Enoch Owen died of wounds on 27 July 1916, aged 32 and was buried at Abbeville Communal Cemetery. This indicates that he probably died at one of the stationary hospitals that had been established at the town having been wounded in action during the Battle of the Somme.
Known memorials:
- Llandudno Roll of Honour
- Llandudno War Memorial
- Memorial Chapel, Holy Trinity Church, Llandudno
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