7577 Acting Corporal/Lance Corporal Harry Pusey was Killed in Action, Aged 30, on the 25th.September 1915 while serving with the 2nd.Btn. The Royal Berkshire Regiment.

Harry had originally landed in France with the 1st.Btn. and saw action in the early battles of the Great War, in1914, including the first contact with the enemy at Mons in Belgium.

At some point he transferred to the 2nd. Battalion and fought in the battle of Loos where he was Listed as "Missing" on the Casualty List issued by the War Office on the 22nd October 1915. However Harry was accepted as having died on the 25th September by the War Office after enquiries through the Red Cross confirmed that he was not a prisoner of war.

Harry has no known grave and is Commemorated on the Ploegsteert Memorial to the missing in Belgium.

Pre-War Harry had previously worked for the Great Western Railway as a labourer in the Signal Department at Reading.

Son of James and Eliza Pusey, of Salter's Cottages, Wooburn Common, Bucks.

Tragically there was more heartache for Harry's parents James and Eliza and his sisters when they were informed that a second son William had Died of Wounds in France, just six days later, on the 1st.October 1915, aged 20 while serving with the Gloucestershire Regiment.

Father James 1855-1921, Mother Eliza 1854-1937, Sisters Annie 1879-1953, Mary (May) 1881-1934, Isabel 1883-1950, Sarah 1892-1939 and surviving brother Henry 1900-?


The WW1 Next of Kin Memorial Plaque, commonly known as the "Dead Man's Penny" or "Death Plaque," was a bronze 120mm medallion issued to the families of over 1.3 million British and Empire personnel who died as a result of World War I. Issued in the 1910s and 1920s, it honors the fallen without ranking.

The plaque measures 12cm in diameter.

There is a small blemish to the front of the plaque, shown in the photos. This appears to have been from the manufacturing process.