Captain John Audley Parle (MC)

• Age: 33
• From: Liverpool
• Regiment: 12th KLR
• Died on Friday 30th November 1917
• Commemorated at: Honnechy British Cemetery
  Panel Ref: II.D.44

John Audley was born on 1st November 1885 the son of John Francis Parle and his wife Catherine (nee Audley) who married on 05th November 1883 at St Oswald's Church, Liverpool. His father was born in Ireland, his mother in Liverpool. He was Baptised at St. Anne’s, Liverpool on 11th November 1885,  his parents were at this time living at 90 Edge Lane. John was the eldest of four children. His siblings were Catherine, Francis and Margaret. 

The 1891 Census shows the family are living at 90 Edge Lane, Liverpool. Father is a general commission agent.

John's mother died in 1892, aged 35 when John was 6. Tagically his sister Margaret died soon after her mother, age 1.

His father remarried in 1900 to Mary Ellen Mullin 1900. They had no children together.

By 1901 John, 15, is a school boy, boarding at Ampleforth Abbey and Roman Catholic college in Oswaldkirk, this was a monastery of Benedictine monks in North Yorkshire. His siblings Francis and Catherine are living with their father and step mother at 90 Edge Lane. His father is a sack merchant.

The 1911 Census shows the family still living at 90 Edge Lane. His father is a general merchant. John is 25, single and employed as a chartered accountant. His brother, Francis, is a dental student. His sister, Catherine, is a school teacher.There is also a domestic servant in the household.

John enlisted inLiverpool joining the 17th Bn KLR as Private 15756. He was transferred to the 12th Battalion of the King's Liverpool Regiment where he was Commissioned. 

London Gazette, 18th August 1917 – made acting Captain.

London Gazette, 14th September 1917 reported the following:

– T./Sec.-Lt. Awarded Military Cross “For conspicuous gallantry and devotion to duty when in charge of a raiding party. As they were about to return he found one of his officers lying unconscious on the enemy wire. He took him on his back and carried him 250 yards to our lines, through heavy enemy barrage and machine gun fire.”

Liverpool Echo, 29th November 1917 reported  - “A telegram has been received stating that Captain John Audley Parle, M.C., has been wounded. Captain Parle, who was awarded the Military Cross in September last, is the son of Mr. J.F. Parle of 90 Edge Lane, Liverpool.”

Weekly Casualty List of 18th December 1917, reported missing.

John was killed in action on 30/11/1917 aged 32. He is buried at Honnechy British Cemetery where his headstone bears the epitaph:

"REQUIESCAT IN PACE"

Honnechy was part of the battlefield of Le Cateau in August 1914, and from that time it remained in German hands until the 9th October 1918, when the 25th Division and the 6th Cavalry Brigade captured it. It had been a German Hospital centre, and from its capture until the end of October it was a British Field Ambulance centre. The village was inhabited by civilians during the whole of the War. The cemetery stands on the site of a German Cemetery begun in the Battle of Cambrai 1917 and used by German troops and then by British until the 24th October 1918. The 300 German graves were removed to another burial ground, leaving 44 British graves; and the cemetery was re-made in 1922 and 1923 by the concentration of British graves almost entirely from German Cemeteries. 

There are now over 450, 1914-18 war casualties commemorated in this site. Of these, nearly a quarter are unidentified and a special memorial is erected to one Canadian soldier known to be buried among them. Other special memorials record the names of eight soldiers from the United Kingdom whose graves could not be found during the concentrations from German cemeteries. A number of graves in Plot I, Row C, identified as a whole but not individually, are marked by headstones bearing the additional words "Buried near this spot". The cemetery covers an area of 1,691 square metres and is enclosed by a low rubble wall on three sides.
 
The Ampleforth Journal in 1919 reports an eye witness to his death, claiming John was thrown to the ground by the explosion of a shell and probably died soon afterwards.

John is commemorated on the Liverpool Society of Chartered Accountants memorial.

We currently have no further information on John Audley Parle, If you have or know someone who may be able to add to the history of this soldier, please contact us.