Cyril Jevon Barnsley was the only surviving son of the late William Thomas Barnsley of Wednesbury, a steel merchant and Ada Mary Barnsley.  He was born in Wednesbury, Staffordshire on 18th August 1892. 

On the Census of 1901, eight year old Cyril Jevon Barnsley was in the care of the Royal Orphanage, Goldthorn Hill, Wolverhampton.  On the 1911 census he was working as a draper’s assistant and living as a boarder in 12 Holtshill Lane, Walsall.   De Ruvigny’s Roll of Honour records that his mother lived at Rose Bank, Great Malvern.

During the Great War he served with the , having enlisted at their headquarters in Ipswich.

Cyril enlisted into the 4th (Territorial) Battalion of the Suffolk Regiment in Ipswich on 11th February 1916.  He served with the Expeditionary Force in France and Flanders from 5th January 1917.  He was killed in action at the Battle of Arras on 23rd April 1917 aged 24.  He has no known grave but is remembered on the Arras Memorial in France. 

Commemoration

Cyril was not commemorated on the Malvern Library Memorial or any of the other local memorials, but his death was reported in the Malvern News on the 2nd June 1917.  The only other link with the town is his commemoration in the County War Memorial Books in Worcester Cathedral for Malvern.

1901 Census
1911 Census
De Ruvigny Roll of Honour
roathlocalhistorysociety.org