Driver Leonard Townend
Royal Field Artillery, No.1 Depot, Service no. 111477
Died at home 16th June 1919, aged 51
Story
Leonard was born in 1867 near the Primitive Methodist Chapel in Kippax, and was the son of Charles Townend (1842-1870) and Elizabeth Campbell (1848-1926). His father passed away in 1870 aged 28, and his mother re-married Christopher Ashton in 1872. In Swillington, on 28th January 1895, Leonard married Louisa Dickinson (24th November 1872 – 7th February 1908), and the couple had a son Arthur Reginald the same year, and the family moved to Garforth. After Louisa passed away aged 36, Leonard married Eliza Saddington, who was a 40 year-old widow, on 17th Oct 1908 in Dewsbury, but the extended family continued to live at Springfield Place, West Garforth, until the outbreak of War.
At the age of 48, Leonard enlisted in the Royal Field Artillery on 18th October 1915. As he was ten years older than the recruitment limit, he declared his year of birth to be 1880, and therefore his implied age was 35 and 2 months. He was 5 ft 4½ inches tall, and worked as a coal miner. During active service, Leonard fell ill with exhaustion, and was operated on for a cyst on his abdomen, before he was sent home from France after complaining of pain in his wrists and knees. Medical tests found that he had aortic disease, and the Army found his birth certificate which showed him to be 51 years-old. He was discharged from the Army on 17th February 1919 and died shortly after on 16th June 1919. He is buried in a Commonwealth War Grave in St Mary’s Church Yard, Garforth (Row 59 Grave 3, pictured right), and is commemorated on the Swillington Memorial (below left), as his family was then living on Swillington Common, and the new Garforth Memorial (below centre):
Kippax Roll of Honour 