Joseph Hulse was born on 12th April 1889 at 10, Chapel Street in Over, Winsford. He was the son of James Reuben Hulse (born Overton, near Frodsham) and his wife Emily (nee Wildblood) who was born at Mow Cop in the east of Cheshire. The father was a salt labourer.
The Census of 1891 showed the family living at 10,Chapel Street in the Over district of Winsford and by this time there were three sons, Charles aged six years, Joseph aged one year and one-month-old James.
Ten years later they were living at Marshgate in the Sutton area of the parish of Aston-by-Sutton. The father was employed in a salt works and Charles was a boiler cleaner in a chemical works. Joseph also had a brother Levi who was six years old and a sister Mary who was three years of age. Another son called James Reuben had died at the age of five years in 1896. Levi would also serve and die in the Great War.
By 1911 Joseph had left home and was boarding at a house on The Parade in Parkgate on Wirral. He was working as a railway porter. On 2nd August 1915 he married Florence May Turner who was a neighbour in Sutton. They were married at St Peter’s in Aston-by-Sutton. At that time Joseph was a corporal in the army and was living at South Farnborough in Hampshire.
At some time after war broke out, Joseph enlisted in the 11th Battalion of the Cheshire Regiment and was given the service number 16462. He would be a sergeant at the time of his death. He was killed in action on 10th October 1916 in France and is commemorated on the Thiepval Memorial to the Missing of the Somme and on the War Memorial at Aston-by-Sutton. At the time of his death his wife was living at Speakman’s Cottages near Marshgate, where her own family lived. They had no children.
Joseph Hulse was 27 years old when he was killed. Florence died in January 1951, aged 59 years.