2nd Lieutenant, 22nd Battalion Manchester Regiment.
Died 2nd June 1916, age 26.
Remebered on the Thiepval Memorial, France.
Former student of chemistry.
Joshua was born in 1890 at Casablanca, Morocco to Haim, and Minnie Cansino. HIs father was a shipping merchant. Joshua was educated at Cheetham Higher Grade School, and entered Manchester University in 1906 gaining an MSc. Technology Applied Chemistry in 1910. Between 1909 and 1910 he was a student demonstrator and also acted as Secretary to the Students’ Chemistry Society for one year. He was a Captain and paymaster in the Jewish Lads’ Brigade. After graduating he spent a year in Germany where he delivered a course of lectures at Berlin Univeristy on “Technical Education in England”. He then proceeded to Paris and was still living there at the outbreak of war. In April 1914 he married Beryl Johnston of Worthing, Essex.
Joshua enlisted in the Royal Sussex Regiment, obtained the rank of sergeant and applied for a commission. He was gazetted in November 1915 to the Manchester Regiment and went to the front in March 1916 with the 22nd Battalion. During a raid on a German trench, south east of Mametz, he was killed while attempting to rescue a wounded officer who was entangled in the enemy’s wire. His Colonel in a letter to his parents wrote, “He died in the act of performing a splendid deed in the face of almost certain death”.
Josuha and his wife were expecting their first child at the time of his death. Effects worth £187 9s 1d were left to Isaac and Abraham Cansino, both shippers.