James Firth (15th January 1874 to 29th May 1921)

I drove across to Sheffield to look for the grave of a Victoria Soldier who had his eye shot out (well worth the petrol.) He’s buried in the sprawling impoverished Burngreave part of Sheffield. The cemetery was large enough to have a road in the middle of it and I only left the car where I did as I got stuck behind a man in a wheelchair walking...or...wheeling his Alsation. If it escaped his clutches to chew my leg how would he get it back - he was in a blooming wheelchair? Thankfully it was a soft as mud. Where to start to looking - the graves were so plentiful and random I wasn’t sure where to start. After about twenty minutes I got lucky.

James was born a ten-minute drive from this grave in Wincobank but little is known of his boyhood. It doesn’t sound much of a boyhood as he joined the Army when he was 15. In June 1897 the 23-year-old married got married to Mary and they’d go on to have three children (one died aged 10.) By 25 he was a Sergeant in the 1st Battalion, Duke of Wellington’s West Riding Regiment and sent to South Africa to fight in the Second Boer War (a 2-year territorial scrap between the British empire and two South African states.)

On Saturday 24^th February 1900 the 26-year-old was fighting at Plewman's Farm in Cape Colony. He saw Lance-Corporal Blackman was lying wounded (probably speared or shot) and was exposed to a fire that had started. He was going to get burnt to crisp unless someone saved him. Risking death James ran out and picked him up and then carried him to cover. Later that day when the enemy had advanced Second Lieutenant Wilson was dangerously wounded and in a position that exposed him to imminent death. Again James crossed terrain and carried Wilson over the crest of the ridge to safety. While doing this he was shot through the nose and eye (he’d wear an eye patch for the rest of his days.)

Eighteen months after his return to England at St James’s Palace in London King Edward VII pinned a Victoria Cross medal on James’s chest. He left the army and returned to Sheffield and became a foreman at a steelworks. Aged 40 and with one eye working he applied for service again as World War One broke out but was turned down on medical grounds. Sadly he died aged of tuberculosis aged 47 leaving an estate worth £359 (about £17,000 now.) His medals were left in his will to his son and in they were bought at auction in 1999 for £38,000 by the Ashcroft Trust which collects them (nowadays they often sell for £100,000+)

I found the grave while looking reading headstone of Gunner Richard Scothern who died in the Second world War. I thought "soldiers are often buried near other soldiers" and I was right - just a few feet behind is the weather-beaten headstone of James. He's buried with his wife and his two sons. I'd read the grave was crumbling into a state of disrepair and had been repaired. It's deteriorated again though and no part of any name is left to read. I only knew this was the correct grave by looking at the photos I'd printed off. I will have to return and leave a weatherproof data sheet behind saying a brave one-eyed dude lies here.