Allegiance United Kingdom Name Joseph Stones Unit Durham Light Infantry | Rank Lance Sergeant Service/branch British Army | |
Died 18 January 1917 (aged c24)
near Arras, France Battles/wars First World War
Western Front | ||
Lance Sergeant Joseph William Stones (1892 – 18 January 1917) was a British soldier during the First World War who was executed for cowardice. He later became the first Briton so executed to have his name added to a war memorial.
Biography
Stones was born and grew up in Crook, County Durham, and worked as a miner before the war. When the war began in 1914 he volunteered to join the army, but was rejected because he was too short. By 1915 the army had lowered its requirements, and Stones joined the 19th Battalion, Durham Light Infantry in 1915. He was commended for his bravery several times, and fought in the Battle of the Somme.
The incident for which he was executed occurred near Arras on 26 November 1916. According to his statement to his court martial, his officer, Lt Mundy, was injured by a gunshot, and ordered him to go for help. He was unable to fire his rifle because the safety catch was on and the cover was over the breech, so he jammed it across the trench to slow down the advancing German soldiers. In spite of Mundy's orders, and a statement from his commanding officer that "he is the last man I would have thought capable of any cowardly action." Stones was convicted of "shamefully casting away his rifle" in the face of the enemy, and sentenced to death. Brigadier-General H O'Donnell upheld his conviction, in spite of his doubts about the quality of the evidence presented. Stones was executed by firing squad several days later alongside John McDonald and Peter Goggins, who had been convicted of abandoning their posts in the same incident. The chaplain who prayed with them before their deaths remarked that he had never met three braver men.
Like many men executed for cowardice, Stones became a source of shame for his family, and his name was rarely mentioned. His great-nephew, Tom Stones, only discovered that he existed accidentally, while researching his family tree, but later became prominent in the campaign for a Royal Pardon for Stones and the other servicemen executed for cowardice during the First World War.
In 1997, Wear Valley Council took the then unprecedented decision to add Stones' name to the war memorial in Crook, after the Minister of State for the Armed Forces, John Reid, announced a government review of the cases of the men shot for cowardice. Stones was eventually pardoned in 2006 along with the other 305 British soldiers shot at dawn during the First World War.