Harold Lindley Bentley was born at Pannal in 1891, one of seven children born to William and Sarah Jane Bentley. At the time of the 1911 Census, Harold was employed by the North Eastern Railway and continued to live with his parents and an older sister, Ethel May, at Middleton House on Westminster Drive in Pannal.
When war broke out in August 1914, Harold had been with the North Eastern Railway for nine years and worked as a fireman. He was one of many who volunteered to join the army in the early weeks of the war, enlisting into the West Yorkshire Regiment on or about 1st September 1914. He was posted to the regiment's 10th Battalion which landed at Boulogne on 13th July 1915, and first went into the trenches in the Ypres Salient on 3rd August. In June 1916, the battalion moved into the Somme sector, going into trenches opposite the German-held fortress village of Fricourt on the 27th. Four days later it took part in the opening day of the Battle of the Somme. The events of that day are briefly summarised in the battalion's war diary:
At 7.30am the battalion took part in the grand assault…On the right were the 7th Division and on the left the 21st Division. The battalion assaulted in four lines. Two lines got through the German position to the fourth line and were cut off, the attack on our left having failed. Casualties were very heavy, chiefly caused by machine guns which enfiladed our left flank and were so deadly that the third and fourth lines failed to get across “no-man’s-land”. Twenty-two officers [were] casualties including Lieutenant Colonel Dickson, commanding, and Major J. Knott, second-in-command (both killed) and approximately 750 other ranks. The battalion was then withdrawn to Ville.
Among those killed in action was 25-year-old Harold Bentley. His body was recovered from the battlefield and lies buried in Fricourt New Military Cemetery.