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  John Leslie YORKE  : An orphaned baby.  

John Leslie Yorke, was born on 29 March 1899, at Fir Bank Cottage, Helsby. (District Runcorn, sub-district Frodsham, County of Chester)  

His birth certificate says that his father was John Yorke, commercial traveller and his mother was Ella Yorke formerly Walker.

Before he was two years old he was living with an aunt or possibly a baby farmer.  He thought this was in Manchester. He remembered playing with a girl who he thought was his sister. 

While still very young he was moved to Denny, Stirlingshire, Scotland and was brought up by Thomas and Agnes Lawrie.  He never saw his 'aunt' again and the only thing he knew about his family was what was on his birth certificate.  He used the name John Leslie Lawrie.  

He never saw his ‘sister’ again but thought that she was fostered in the Dumbarton area. 

He joined up under-age and served in the army in the last six months of the First World War and then in the army of occupation of the Rhine.  His adopted mother died in the Flu epidemic in 1919.

In about 1920 he visited Helsby and an old man told him that he thought his parents might have drowned.  

He went down the mines and became a pit deputy. He moved to London after the General Strike and became a London City Missionary working in Spitalfields in the East End of London.

Although I have searched many times, I have not managed to find marriage or death certificates for John and Ella Yorke. If you have any information click here to send me an email

Although my father-in-law was born as John Leslie Yorke, he used the name John Lawrie and later John Lawrence. He had eight children. The seventh, Alan, my husband, was born at the height of the blitz in October 1940.  

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