Harold Scott Heenan

Captain 169354

Royal Engineers

Died 22 August 1946 

 

Captain Harold Scott Heenan died, not on the battlefield but at home in Birkdale in Lancashire, England. Yet in appreciation of his service to his country,his burial place at the Sacred Heart Roman Catholic Cemetery in Birkdale, is marked by a military headstone.

Harold Scott was born in 1894, the third child of Samuel Robert Heenan and Jane Scott. His father – and his paternal grandfather Joseph Heenan – were all involved in newspapers.

Joseph Heenan, who was from Ireland originally, described himself as an agent for the Newcastle Chronicle in the 1871 census. He and his family were living in Rye Hill Street, Elswick, Northumberland at the time. Joseph may not have been a journalist but may have simply been selling the newspapers to newsagents or could have been responsible for selling advertising space.

Samuel Robert was the second son born to Joseph and his wife Elizabeth Hogg. By the time of the 1891 census when Samuel, aged 27 and also living in Elswick, is himself married, he is describing himself as a journalist. He continues in that occupation for the next ten years. But by the time of the 1911 census, when he is 47 years old, and has relocated to Toxteth Park, Liverpool, he has changed roles and is now described as “Secretary Netamerance Syndicate.” This could well be a transcription error but I haven’t yet found any term that might be the correct description.

He changed locations twice more before his death – first to Sandown Park in Lancashire and then to Hampshire where he died in 1948 in Southampton.

Harold Scott Heenan

Little is known of his early life. What we do know is that when war broke out in 1914, he joined the King’s (Liverpool Regiment) as Private number 3049. He was posted to France where he was injured and required medical attention at a casualty clearing station in December of that year. In 1915 he was promoted to Second Lieutenant, The King’s (Liverpool Regiment). His services were recognised with the award of the 1914 Star.

He married Hilda Harris in 1923 at the Lady of Good Help, Wavertree, Liverpool.

He and his wife subsequently moved to Lyndhurst in Hampshire. At the outbreak of World War 2, the 1939 National Register records that he had retired and was living in Southampton, Hampshire. At some point soon after he moved back North where, according to the announcement of his death in the Lancashire Evening Post , he was an embarkation staff officer with Movement Control at Birkenhead.

Sources

    • Commonwealth War Graves Commission [https://www.cwgc.org]
    • Civil registration England and Wales: Births, Newcastle Registration District, General Register Office
      Vol 10b  page 58 Accessed via Find My Past
    • Parish Marriages, Liverpool Record Office via Find My Past.com
    • Census of England: 1871, 1891, 1901, 1911. The National Archives accessed via Find My Past
    • National Register of England, 1939 The National Archives accessed via Find My Past
    • Medal cards: National Archives collection WO 372 Accessed via Ancestry.com
    • Army List, accessed via Ancestry.com
    • Lancashire Evening Post, 26 Aug 1946. Page 4 accessed via British Newspapers Archive