Joseph Allan Embury signature

Joseph Allan Embury, a billing clerk for the Canadian Pacific Railway, signed up in Peterborough on this day in 1916. He was born in Deseronto on October 2nd, 1900, the son of Thomas Embury and Nora (née Meagher), although he claimed to have been born in 1898.

Embury joined the 74th Battery of the Canadian Field Artillery with the regimental number 344926. He was five feet four and a quarter inches tall, with a dark complexion, brown eyes and dark brown hair. His service record shows that he left Canada on April 28th, 1917, aged 16, on the SS Olympic, which arrived in England on May 7th.  On May 16th he was admitted to hospital for a month, suffering from an infection. He served in the Artillery’s reserve brigades in England until December 19th, 1917, when he was sent to France.

The fact that Embury was underage was detected on January 9th, 1918 and he was transferred back to England as a minor. There is a copy of his birth registration on his file, supplied by the Deseronto Registrar on February 2nd, 1918.

Joseph Allan Embury birth registration copy

In March Joseph was sent home to Canada, where he was discharged from the army on May 14th, 1918 in Kingston, for being underage. He died in Saanich, British Columbia on May 20th, 1961.