Tags
Express & Star, Germany, Leonard Bate, Lichfield Street, New Zealand, Prisoners of War, South Staffordshire Regiment, T. E. Lowe, Tettenhall, Tettenhall Wood, Wood Road
Leonard was born in Wolverhampton on 13 January 1899, the son of Enoch Wesley and Anna Maria Bate. He was christened at Tettenhall on 3 April 1899. The family were living at 147 Tettenhall Wood in 1901, including Leonard, his parents, sisters Kate, Harriett Ann, Dora Beatrice, Nellie, Ruth, and Winifred Alice, and brothers Enoch Arthur and Harold Victor. By 1911, they were living at 72 Wood Road, Tettenhall.
On 8 January 1917 he enlisted with the 4th Battalion of the South Staffordshire Regiment (number 42663). By this date, his trade was clerk at T. E. Lowe, Lichfield Street, Wolverhampton. There was a small piece in the Express & Star on 29 May 1918, stating that he had been taken prisoner in Germany. He was taken prisoner at Messines on 11 April 1918, and kept at the camp at Antwerp. He was repatriated and discharged in June 1919.
At some point, he appears to have emigrated to New Zealand, as he is shown on the electoral registers of Timaru, in Canterbury, in 1949 and 1954. I have not been able to trace further details of his life