People on board

HEWITT, Leonard

Leonard Hewitt was born in 1897 in Oldham, near Manchester, to Hamlet Hewitt and Sarah Ann Laithwaite. He was the fourth of their seven children and the only son after his brother died in 1903. Leonard was baptised in March 1903 along with his three younger sisters.  In the 1901 census they were living in the Chadderton area of Oldham, a major mill town, where Hamlet gave his occupation as ‘Steam Hammer Driver’. In 1911 Leonard, then aged thirteen, was a ‘Cotton Spinning Piecer’ – this job involved leaning over the spinning machine to repair broken threads. The family were then living in Bush Road.

Leonard Hewitt enlisted in the Manchester Regiment (Number 36694), possibly as early as 1914, and transferred later to the Royal Defence Corps. His limited military records give no details of his army life, or of dates. In October he was stationed in Ireland with the 462nd Protection Company. He travelled home on RMS Leinster on leave with several other members of the Company.

He did not survive the sinking but his body was recovered and he was buried in Grangegorman Military Cemetery in Dublin. His name is recorded on the Oldham War Memorial.