This is a first for me…..having looked through 1000s of service records for men of the 1/6th and 2/6th Battalions, the Sherwood Foresters, this is the first record of a numbered reinforcement to the 2/6th Battalion.

203142 Private Cornelius William Sharp, a 28 year old lace maker from Nottingham attested in December 1915. He was mobilised in November 1916 and posted to the 5th Reserve Battalion in Louth.

After basic training he embarked for France on 19 July 1917 as part of the 7 Reinfocemt [sic] for the 2/6th Battalion.

Cornelius was posted missing in action on the 27th September 1917 following an attack on Passchendale Ridge – see here – he was one of 26 men missing that day.

He was the son of William and Louisa Sharp and the husband of Edith (née Foster) Hardy (formerly Sharp). In 1911 they lived at 5 Furlong Terrace Middle Furlong Road Meadows Nottingham. He was the father of Ida May Sharp.