Kenora Great War Project

 

Personal Details
Date of BirthSeptember 27, 1879
Place of BirthScarborough, Yorkshire
CountryEngland
Marital StatusMarried
Next of KinJane Pull, wife, Kenora, Ontario
Trade / CallingTeamster
ReligionChurch of England
Service Details
Regimental Number327928
Service Record Link to Service Record
Battalion59th Battery
ForceCanadian Expeditionary Force
BranchCanadian Field Artillery
Enlisted / ConscriptedEnlisted
Address at EnlistmentKenora, Ontario
Date of EnlistmentMarch 15, 1916
Age at Enlistment36
Theatre of ServiceEurope
Prisoner of WarNo
Survived WarYes
Death Details
Date of DeathDecember 20, 1961
Age at Death82
Buried AtBrookside Cemetery, Winnipeg, Manitoba
PlotMlty-5089

Pull, John

John Pull was born on 27 September 1879 in Scarborough, Yorkshire, England. His parents were John Pull and Frances Clarkson.

He served in the Second Boer War (1899 – 1902) with the 3rd Battery Grenadier Guards, earning the King’s South Africa Medal. He was suffering from rheumatism when he was discharged. He also saw action in Gibraltar and stated he served with the Grenadier Guards for a total of seven years.

John immigrated to Canada in 1903, leaving Liverpool on 04 June, arriving in Montreal  on 13 June. Several family members accompanied him on the Ionian making their way to Rat Portage (Kenora), Ontario.

On 13 May 1905 John married Jane Markham in Kenora. His occupation at this time was ‘labourer’.  They had seven children: John Phillip (1906), Violet Jane (1907), Sarah Alice (1909), Frances Ivy (1911), Ernest Markham (1912), Arthur Langemark (1915) and Manley (1917).

On 14 March 1916, John left Kenora for Winnipeg where he enlisted with the 59th Battery, 15th Brigade – an overseas artillery company under Captain Riley. The unit trained at Camp Petawawa, Ontario and it was here that John had an appendectomy in August 1916. On 11 September 1916 he embarked for England aboard the S.S. Cameronia. John was transferred to the 61st Battery in January of 1917 at Witley, England. In July 1917 he spent 10 days in hospital in Bramshott with ‘post op adhesions’.

John landed in France on the 22 August 1917 with the 14th Battery and the rank of gunner. His service record notes that on 3 September 1917 he was ‘attached for all purposes to 5th Canadian Div. Train as a loader’. On 7 December 1917 John reported to #1 Casualty Clearing Station because his right foot had become red and swollen from exposure to wet and mud in the trenches. He was sent to #13 Hospital in Boulogne and then to hospital in Liverpool, England. He was treated in various English hospitals for arthritis and deformity of his toes until being invalided to Canada in October 1918. After a short visit home to Kenora, John went to a military hospital in Winnipeg for treatment. On 8 January 1919 he had an operation to ‘remove the heads of lat and 3rd metatarsals of both feet’. This was followed by a second operation in July 1919 in which the heads of the 2nd  metatarsals of both feet were removed. Upon discharge from the hospital in the fall of 1919, John was given ‘disability boots with Loman plates’. He received his official discharge from the CEF due to being medically unfit on 27 October 1919 in Winnipeg.

The Pull family moved to Winnipeg in 1919. John’s sons Arthur and Ernest both served in the Second World War.

John organized the first Imperial Company of Army & Navy Veterans in Canada. He was a life member of the Guards Association serving as its Stewart and Commissionaire for some 30 years.

Predeceased by his wife Jane in January of 1943, John died in Deer Lodge Hospital in Winnipeg on 20 December 1961 and is buried in Brookside Cemetery.

John lost his brother-in-law   Frederick Markham in WW1 as well as his nephews  Arthur E. Clarkson and   John Cahill.


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