2nd Lieutenant, 8th Battalion Manchester Regiment.
Killed in action Saturday 16th May 1915, age 40.
Remembered on the Helles Memorial, Turkey.
Former student of engineering.
The eldest of four brothers, Percy was born at Eccles on 22nd March 1875 to James Clarkson Johnson, a cotton spinner, and Mary Helen Clarkson. He was educated at Kings School, Canterbury, Repton School and in Stuttgart. He entered Owen’s College in March 1892, residing at Dalton Hall, as a student in engineering and left the following March.
In 1898 he was commissioned into the 5th (Ardwick) Volunteer Battalion Manchester Regiment and served as a captain in the 6th Battalion during the Boer War. During that campaign he received the Queen’s Medal with four bars and was given the rank of honorary captain in the regular army.
After the Boer War he settled in Rhodesia as a farmer. In 1905 he married Marie Ann Kohler, the daughter of a French missionary to Basutoland. They had two sons. Percy was in England on holiday when war broke out and immediately applied for a comission and was gazetted with the 8th Battalion (Ardwick) Manchester Regiment on 7th August 1914. In September 1914 the battalion went to Egypt and then Gallipoli. He was killed by machine gun fire which hit him in the stomach while scouting for new positions.
Percy left effects worth £9819 to his wife and Frank Augusuts Padmore, a solicitor.