Joseph Dolby
Joseph Dolby was born in Barkston about 1878. His father was also Joseph and they lived at Hounds yard, next to The Plough in West St. After their mother, Mary (nee King) died in 1890 (age 39) Joseph’s older sister became the housekeeper. Joseph and the boys were all farmworkers, although by 1911 Joseph snr was working in the ironstone quarries and his widowed sister Mary Gray was housekeeper. Joseph snr died aged 68 in May 1916.
In 1911 Joseph (1878) was lodging with Alfred Dickinson, innkeeper. During the Great War he enlisted in 2nd Battalion Lincolnshire Regiment. He was killed in action on 16th November 1916. He has no known grave but is listed on the Thiepval Memorial and the Barkston War Memorial.
William Dolby
The William Dolby on the Brant Broughton war memorial was probably the son of David Dolby (from Hough on the Hill) and Harriet (nee Footitt, born Gelston). They lived in Gelston before moving to Barkston, where William was born in 1889. They were then in Sheffield for a few years before moving back to Gelston around 1898 (the family had connections in the Brightside part of Sheffield).
In 1901 they were living in Subrooke and David was working in the ironstone quarries. By 1906 they’d moved to Carlton le Moorland, or perhaps between Carlton and Brant Broughton, as in 1904 a young farm labourer from Brant Broughton called William Dolby was accused of mistreating a horse whilst working for the Toulson family in Gelston.
By 1911 David and Harriet were in Bassingham, where David had returned to his previous job of shoemaker’s labourer. The 6 youngest of their 9 surviving children were still with them but William seems to have been boarding in Pond St, Lincoln (now St. Faith St) and working in a foundry.
In 1916 he married Mary Anne Cullen in Lincoln and they set up home at 31 Flaxengate. During the war he served with the Lincolnshire Regiment. According to one source he’d been in France since 1914, in which case he probably was (or had been) a regular soldier.
He died on 23 March 1919. He’d been transferred from 3rd Battalion (a training unit) to 41st Agricultural Company of the Labour Corps. This was linked to the Lincolnshire Regiment and formed from solders no longer fit enough for combat duties. His service records were lost in WW2 so we don’t know if he died from the effects of war service, or perhaps during the 1919 flu epidemic. He is buried at Lincoln (Newport) Cemetery.