Sergeant John Cromie Patterson Stewart
John Cromie Patterson Stewart was born on 17 March 1895 at Cumran, Clough, County Down, the sixth of eight children of Presbyterian clergyman John Stewart and his wife Jane (nee Patterson). His mother died soon after the birth of her last child when John was just five years old.
By 1911 Stewart was living at 47 Delhi Street, Belfast, with his sister, Mary, a secondary school teacher, and his brother Hugh.
Stewart enlisted in the North Irish Horse between 4 and 10 June 1915 (No.1675 – later Corps of Hussars No.71496). Between 1916 and 1918 he was sent to France, either with a reinforcement draft for one of the squadrons of the 1st North Irish Horse Regiment, or with E Squadron in January 1916.
On 15 July 1918 he was transferred to the Labour Corps (No.611566), possibly to a prisoner of war company.
After the war Stewart worked for many years in the civil service. On 1 January 1953 as a staff officer of the National Assistance Board of Northern Ireland he was made an Ordinary Member (Civil Division) of the Order of the British Empire in the Queen's New Year's Honours List.
Stewart died at the Royal Infirmary, Leicester, on 18 May 1966.
Both of Sergeant Stewart's brothers served during the war, Corporal Robert Cromie Stewart in the North Irish Horse, and Lieutenant Hugh Joseph Lowry Stewart in the Royal Irish Rifles in India.
Image kindly provided by Neil Stewart.