Henry James Worthington was born in 1897 in Lower Farringdon. Here his father was grocer and postmaster although, when first married, his parents George and Alice ran the Horse and Groom in Newton Valence. James (as he was known) was one of 13 children and started his working life by helping his father.
At some point, James must have emigrated as he enlisted into the 17th Battalion of the Australian Infantry on 4th July 1915 and arrived in Marseilles in Southern France on 23rd March the following year.
In that December, 2224 Private Worthington was admitted to hospital in Rouen and then discharged to England where he went into hospital on the 29th. He was released from here on the 19th January 1917 and left Folkstone for France on board the SS Golden Eagle on the 25th February.
Sadly, he was killed in action on the 15th April 1917. Private Henry James Worthington is commemorated on the Villers-Bretonneux Memorial, Somme in France and on a cross in Farringdon churchyard.
Source: “The Remembered Ones of the Great War”, 2014, The Alton and Villages Local History Forum (with permission)
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