John William Horrigan - Stabbed By Comrade
This is a gravestone in one of my favourite local graveyard’s (Wardour, Wiltshire) and to be honest I have never given it much thought apart from the fact that it is a military gravestone. Wardour cemetery is a Roman Catholic burial ground which was founded in 1836 and is also a wildlife conservation area. It is a very small but beautiful graveyard to visit.
There are only two military graves in this graveyard and I presumed that J.W.Horrigan died due to ill health or an accidental death (which he technically did I suppose). I was intrigued to find out how he had died but my initial enquiries on his army records failed to find any information. However I then located an entry in the Record of Service In The Great War 1914-18 by London Country Council under Chapter XVI titled Death From Disease.
“In 1915…J.W.Horrigan (R.F.A., Tram.) on 7th February as the result of an accident at Mere, Wilts”.
Mere is a small town located 10.1 miles from Wardour cemetery and research has revealed that the Royal Artillery was stationed in Mere during WW1 and trained on the downs. However I was not able to find any further information on the main genealogy sites about his death.
So I turned to my trusty friend Mr Google and I came across an entry on a forum mentioning J.W. Horrigan in response to a photograph of a military funeral in Mere. There is no evidence that this is the funeral procession of J.W. Horrigan, however he was mentioned as one of the possible soldiers due to the dating of the photograph. The post revealed that he was stabbed to death after a pillow fight by one of his comrades who then attempted to commit suicide after his arrest. The death was later treated as an accidental death. Photo credit to: https://www.greatwarforum.org/topic/274983-mere-military-funeral/
I have added a link below to details of the inquest and it is a very sad report especially as he had a young family.
Further information can be found below:
INQUEST: https://salisburyinquests.wordpress.com/1915a/horrigan-john/
CWGC: https://www.cwgc.org/find-records/find-war-dead/casualty-details/405774/horrigan,-john-william/