Young Harry was determined not to become a prison warder and was apprenticed to a stonemason by the time he was 14 years old. He is said to have run away to sea at 16, worked as a cook on (probably) a collier between Newport, Isle of Wight and Newport, Monmouthshire, and jumped ship to join the Royal Field Artillery with his older brother, George, at Colchester. Whatever happened, his indenture as an apprentice was cancelled so that he could join the RFA.
Henrietta Maud Osborn was born on 16th February 1879 in Colchester, the seventh child of ten born to shoemaker, James Bradshaw Osborn, and his wife, Naomi Newitt.
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