2nd Lieutenant, 1st Battalion Bedfordshire Regiment.
Killed in action 23rd April 1917, age 25.
Remembered on the Arras Memorial.
Former member of the University Officer Training Corps.
Vernon, born on 10th June 1892 to Edward James and Ada Curry, was educated at St. Margarets, Whalley Range and Princess Road Higher Grade School in Manchester. While working as a fire insurance surveyor Guardian Assurance Company he was a language and economics student at the Manchester Municipal Evening Schools of Commerce. On 23rd May 1916 he married Laura Houghton of Plymouth Grove at All Saints Church on Oxford Road, Manchester.
Vernon joined the University Officer Training Corps on 9th July 1915 and left on 5th October that year having been commissioned in the Bedfordshire Regiment. He was killed near Arras in April 1917 while leading his men in a charge against the enemy. His Lieutenant-Colonel reported that a sergeant “saw him fall, and feels sure that death was instantaneous. It was a splendid and gallant one… He was such a cheery fellow and full of dash, and one of the last things I told him was to take care of himself as I knew that fear was unknown to him”. Other officers recalled that his “cheerful personality was a great asset to his company” and he “was very keen, and was always under the impression that he must be first in the attack”.