Early Life :

• Elizabeth Rebecca (Daisy, b.3.11.1885, Downshire Road, Holywood)


• Knox Gordon (b. 30.11.1887, Downshire Road, Holywood)


• Ernest William (b.16.2.1890, Kinnegar, Holywood)


• Norman James (b.16.4.1894, The Highlands, Ballymenoch)


• St Clair Edward John (b.5.9.1898, Riverside, Holywood)

Family :

Service Life:

Campaigns:

• The First World War 1914-1918, World-wide.

31 July - 10 November 1917. By the summer of 1917 the British Army was able for the first time to fight on its chosen ground on its terms. Having secured the southern ridges of Ypres at Messines in June, the main attack started on 31st July 1917 accompanied by what seemed like incessant heavy rain, which coupled with the artillery barrages conspired to turn much of the battlefield into a bog. Initial failure prompted changes in the high command and a strategy evolved to take the ring of ridges running across the Ypres salient in a series of 'bite and hold' operations, finally culminating in the capture of the most easterly ridge on which sat the infamous village of Passchendaele. The Official History carries the footnote ?The clerk power to investigate the exact losses was not available? but estimates of British casualties range from the official figure of 244,000 to almost 400,000. Within five months the Germans pushed the British back to the starting line, which was where they had been since May 1915.

Detail :

Shortly after the outbreak of the Great War Knox Gordon Barrett returned from Hong Kong where he was working in the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank. He joined the Royal Field Artillery Cadet Corps at Exeter and in July 1917 it was reported that he had suffered a gunshot wound in the thigh and was hospitalised in France. Lieutenant Knox Gordon Barrett was killed on 20 September 1917 when a shell exploded beside where he was standing outside a dugout. Aged 29 when he suffered injuries to his head, shoulder and leg, he never recovered consciousness. He died some ten minutes after sustaining his injuries and was buried in a cemetery behind the lines alongside a corporal who was killed by the same shell. Knox was the third of three Barrett brothers to die on active service in the Great War and, after his death, condolences were expressed to his father at Holywood Petty Sessions. James Hunter Barrett’s only surviving son Second Lieutenant St Clair Edward Barrett served in France with Princess Victoria’s (Royal Irish Fusiliers).

Lieutenant Knox Gordon Barrett was buried in Canada Farm Cemetery in Belgium and he is commemorated on Bangor and District War Memorial; on the Royal British Legion (Bangor Branch) Memorial Plaque; in the Comrades of the Great War (Bangor Branch) Album in North Down Museum; in Bangor Masonic Lodge No. 286; in Bangor Parish Church of Ireland Church (St Comgall’s) and in Campbell College Belfast.

Masonic :

He joined Northern Lodge of China No. 570 from the Irish Constitution. His mother Lodge was The Century Lodge No. 287 in Bangor, County Down and was initiated 24th December 1908.

Source :

The project globally acknowledges the following as sources of information for research across the whole database:

• The Commonwealth War Graves Commission
• The (UK) National Archives
• Ancestry.co.uk - Genealogy, Family Trees & Family History online
• ugle.org.uk - The records of the United Grand Lodge of England including the Library and Museum of Freemasonry

Additional Source:

• Founder Researchers : Paul Masters & Mike McCarthy
• Researcher : Bruce Littley