Henry John Moon

Henry John Moon was born in Hambledon in 1889, the son of John and Harriet Louisa Moon of Green Lane. He grew up in the village within a long established local family and spent his childhood in the rural surroundings that shaped much of Hambledon life. Baptised in January 1889, he remained at home into adulthood and worked as a farm labourer with horses, part of the agricultural workforce on which the parish depended.

By 1911 he was still living with his parents and sisters at Green Lane and, like many young men of the village, had spent his entire life within the same community. His work handling horses placed him among the skilled agricultural labourers whose knowledge of farming work was essential to local estates and farms.

After the outbreak of the First World War he enlisted at Portsmouth into the 1st Battalion Hampshire Regiment and served on the Western Front. By 1918 the battalion was holding positions in northern France following the heavy German spring offensives. The front had stabilised but remained dangerous, with shelling and sudden attacks continuing even during quieter periods.

On 8th June 1918, while the battalion was being relieved from the line, German mortars and machine gun fire struck the troops during the relief. Henry Moon was killed in this action at the age of twenty nine. The same incident also claimed the life of another Hambledon man, Charlie Bull.
He was buried at Gonnehem British Cemetery in the Pas de Calais, a cemetery begun during the fighting of 1918 when the German advance approached the area. The graves there mark men who died while holding the line during one of the war’s most critical phases

Henry Moon had lived his whole life in Hambledon before leaving for the army, and his death far from home brought the war directly into the village once more. His name remains on the memorial among those who did not return.