Sergeant James Boyd Harvey
James Boyd Harvey was born on 15 September 1868 in Newry Street, Banbridge, County Down, the first of eleven children of merchant James Harvey and his wife Jane Elizabeth (née McKee). In the early 1890s he moved to Manchester, marrying Elizabeth Ellen Hilton there in 1894. The couple had eight children over the next seventeen years. At the time of the 1901 Census they were living at 7 la Gascoyne Street, Withington, Manchester, James working as a commercial traveller in petroleum oils. They later moved to Ireland. At the time of the 1911 Census, James, Elizabeth, and five of their six surviving children were living at 34 Long Avenue, Dundalk, County Louth.
Harvey enlisted in the North Irish Horse, probably after the war began, between 1914 and 1916 (regimental number not known at present). His age, in his late 40s, would have prevented him from being sent overseas on active service, and he spent the war at the North Irish Horse reserve depot at Antrim. During that time he was a regular performer, as a vocalist, at concert parties given by the regiment at towns through the north of Ireland. (See references here.)
Records suggest that he remained with the regiment at Antrim and at Skegoneill Avenue, Belfast, until discharged in the mid-1920s, when he returned to his employment as a commercial traveller. He remained, however, connected to the regiment, is name being referred to in reports of the 1925 and 1927 North Irish Horse Old Comrades dinners. (See references here.)
By 1934 Harvey was living at 80 Cromwell Road, Belfast and working as a civil servant. He died in the Belfast Fever Hospital on 14 February that year and was buried in the New Cemetery, Banbridge.
His name is recorded four times on the Presbyterian Church in Ireland's Roll of Honour. (See references here.)
Harvey's son James Frederick Leslie Harvey also served in the war, in the Army Cyclist Corps and the Royal Irish Fusiliers, rising to the rank of sergeant. He was only fifteen years old when he embarked for France with the 36th (Ulster) Division on 3 October 1915. After the war he served with the British army in Persia.