Harold Edwin Beer

This story is shared by the Trust with kind permission from Mavis Williams, Researcher. Photo source: Bovey Tracey Heritage Trust

Harold Edwin Beer was born on the 16th of May 1916, the son of Edwin & Olive May Caroline Beer (née Brealey). They had been married in a Civil Ceremony in Newton Abbott in the March quarter of 1916. Olive Beer had a very impoverished childhood. She had lost at least 4 of her siblings because of their poverty and her parents had been before the court on charges of child neglect for one of those children, Rose, aged 2 years, who had died. On the 1911 census, her father, Thomas Brealey is seen in the Newton Abbott Workhouse, possibly in the Infirmary, because in 1913 he sadly died.

The 1921 census, which was taken on the 19th of June 1921, shows them living at 22, South View, Bovey Tracey, Devon. Edwin Beer was working as a bricklayer’s labourer for Blunt Bros., Builders. Olive Beer was doing home duties as she looked after their two children, Harold Beer, aged 5 years and Margaret Beer, aged 1 year.

Sadly, I have no information on Harold Edwin Beer, neither his early or teen years but I next find him on the 1939 National Register, which was taken on the 29th of September 1939, when he was living with his parents and siblings at 7, Moor View, Bovey Tracey, Newton Abbot, Devon. The family had grown again and Harold was one of five children. His father was working as a bricklayer, his mother and sisters were pottery workers and Harold was working as a general labourer for a pottery firm. Their youngest child was still at school and there is one redacted record which was probably thier fifth child but we can't see their details.

I do not know when Harold Edwin Beer was to enlist but he served in North Africa, Malta, Sicily and Italy from 1940. He was to find himself fighting on D-Day and laid down his life for our freedom whilst serving with 2nd Battalion, Devonshire Regiment which landed on Gold Beach on D-Day. He was killed in action and buried at Asnelles-sur-Mer. On the 3rd November 1944 he was reinterred in the Bayeux British Cemetery where he now lies.