Lance Corporal Joseph Huggins
Joseph Huggins was born on 22 January 1899 in Boston, Lincolnshire, the second of ten children of horse feeder and groom Frederick Huggins and his wife Elizabeth (née Pickwell). By the time of the 1911 Census he was living at Drain Side, North Skirbeck, Boston, with his parents and siblings.
Huggins enlisted or was called-up to the army at the beginning of March 1917. He was posted to the 2/1 Regiment, Derbyshire Yeomanry, a cyclist unit based in the Canterbury area (regimental number unknown, later Corps of Hussars No.76715).
He remained with this unit in the UK until 12 September 1918, when he and 55 other men of the regiment were compulsorily transferred to the Corps of Hussars (No.81261) and posted to the 1st North Irish Horse Regiment, which was then serving in France as corps cyclist regiment to V Corps. They embarked at Folkestone for Boulogne that day, joining the regiment in the field six days later.
The North Irish Horse cyclists saw much action during the final months of the war, and Huggins was one of the many wounded, probably in October 1918. He was discharged on 21 October 1919 (probably as 'no longer physically fit for war service', paragraph 392 (xvi), King's Regulations), and was granted a pension due to a hip dislocation, which was attributed to his military service.
Huggins married Katherine Seymour in Boston on 1 May 1920. At the time of the 1939 Register they were living at 33 Woodthorpe Avenue, Boston, with their two children, Joseph working as a fish salesman. He died in the Wyberton West Hospital, Boston, on 19 January 1955.
Image sourced from Ancestry.com Public Member Trees - contributor Andrew Haw.