Harry Fitzpatrick

[kjell]

Hello,

This player played for Liverpool season 1907/1908. He was signed from Luton Town in July 1907, and then went on to Chesterfield one year later.

According to sources I have access to say he was born in Ayr, Scotland in February 1880. I have been asked by a fellow Liverpool statistician to check if his birth date is correct. I wonder if anyone have any info on Mr Fitzpatrick?

Regards,

Kjell

[tribalcolours]

harold fitzpatrick, b 1 feb 1880, in Ayr.
played for Luton Town, Chesterfield, Vale of Garnock Strollers

Liverpool debut: 12.10.1907
Last appearance: 02.11.1907
Debut goal: 12.10.1907
Last goal: 26.10.1907
Contract expiry: 1908
LFC league games/goals: 4 / 2
Total LFC games/goals: 4 / 2

Fitzpatrick played in four consecutive First Division matches for Liverpool in the early part of the 1907-08 season. He netted the only goal of the game on his debut as the Reds beat Sunderland at Anfield on 12th October 1907 and scored again two weeks later, also at Anfield, when Sheffield Wednesday were beaten 3-0. The Liverpool board received a letter in December 1915 asking for "comforts" for Fitzpatrick who was a prisoner of war. The board accepted that two parcels of groceries be purchased from Cooper's at about 10-6d each. One was sent right away, but the other one held back if Fitzpatrick would need help later on.

[Spireite historian]

I looked for Fitzpatrick's birth as above on Scotland's People but was unable to find it. Any Ayrshire search between 1875 and 1885 revealed two Hughs and three Helens, so unless there was something about his private life that Harry wasn't telling us, he isn't there. The Catholic registers produce only two more Hughs. Does anyone have an opinion on the website's completeness?

I've also got a death in Glasgow in 1953 but again, I can't see it leaping out at me on Scotland's People. The closest is for a 1952 death for a Henry, but he was aged only 63 at death. I've also seen "Henry J" and "Harold James" as forenames, and I've seen Gordon Highlanders added to his pre-Luton clubs.

[Scottish]

Does anyone have an opinion on the website's completeness?

It's complete but it's only as complete as the records are. If for any reason a birth, marriage or death wasn't registered then it won't show. I know from personal experience of the site that my great-great grandfather died as a widower in 1902, that his wife was still alive at the time of the 1891 census but there is absolutely no record of her death between those dates either under her married or maiden name or any variant of spelling thereof.

Other options are that he was born in another county or that he used his middle name when playing. That was and still is quite a common practice.

[Spireite historian]

Searching for "Fitzpatrick H" male births between 1875 and 1885 across Scotland as a whole throws up no Harry or Harold and only one Henry, a Dundee birth in 1879. Similarly, the 1901 census produces only one Henry (and no variants;) a 22-year old, living in Edinburgh. Plenty of Hughs, but I can't stretch that to a "Harry" nickname. Your points regarding use of a middle name or birth elsewhere (guesswork here, but England, perhaps, of Scots parents who moved back north while the boy was young) have substance.

I've found where Vale of Garnock might roughly be (Kilbirnie area?) Did the Gordon Highlanders club (I guess, a regimental side?) have a base in any single town?

[Scottish]

I've found where Vale of Garnock might roughly be (Kilbirnie area?) Did the Gordon Highlanders club (I guess, a regimental side?) have a base in any single town?

The first is a slightly more poetic way of saying Garnock Valley but you're right about Kilbirnie. Plus Dalry, Beith, Glengarnock and some smaller places. The Gordon Highlanders were Glasgow-based and in the three years when they took part in the Scottish Cup (which was drawn geographically) they were placed in the Glasgow & Lanarkshire section of the draw.

[kjell]

Hi all,

Thanks for all your inputs and help. I do believe that the info most sources use today is wrong about him. I know someone has checked out lists of prisoners of war during WW1 and not found anyone with that name. He might of course have been a civilian prisoner.

Regards,

Kjell

[Spireite historian]

I know it has been a long time, but here's my latest on this man.

FITZPATRICK, Henry James
b. Q1 1881, Liverpool.
d. 6.6.1942, Liverpool (per obituary in Liverpool Echo.)

Clubs:
Garston Gas Works
(Military service with the Gordon Highlanders - inc regimental football)
Aberdeen (Sep 1901 trial?, no 1st XI)
Vale of Garnock Strollers ?
Luton Town (c/s 1906, 20a 7g in Southern Lg)
Liverpool (April 1907, 4a 2g)
Chesterfield Town (May 1908, 17a 1g)
Retired to become a Liverpool publican.

Re-joined his regiment August 1914. Said to have become a pow, but his obit says that he coached Zandaan FC in Holland around 1915, so it is more likely that he was an internee.

[ScottishFA]

An interesting case! With lots of twists.

He is in the 1939 Register in Liverpool with a date of birth of 19 December 1881. However, I suspect he may have knocked a year off his age, because he is also in the 1881 census aged 3 months, with his parents James ( machine printer) and Josephine. That census was held on 3 April 1881, so it fits with a birth on 19 Dec 1880, registered early in January (hence Q1 1881).

Some further pointers: he is with his parents and family in Liverpool in 1891 and 1901 census, then on 4 June 1901 he signed up with the Gordon Highlanders - his attestation papers are on Findmypast. He gives his age then as 19 years 6 months, hence already pretending he was born in Dec 1881. Although he signed up in Liverpool, a week later he was in Aberdeen. The name Fitzpatrick appears in a few line-ups for Orion FC in September and October 1901, which is possibly him.

In July 1902, his father paid for him to be discharged and he left the regiment. However, when he joined Luton in October 1906 he is described as an 'ex-army man'.

He married his wife Bridget in Liverpool in 1902, and in 1911 he is working in Liverpool as a letter press machine printer, the same occupation he had in 1939. In 1911 they had had five children, four of them had survived, and interestingly three were born in Liverpool, and a daughter born in Cork in about 1906.

I can't find a record of further military service, but of course his obituary mentions his service with the 'Old Contemptibles', the nickname for WW1 survivors.

He is certainly mentioned in ZVV Zaandam's history as a 'Scottish coach' in 1916: http://www.voetballegends.nl/club.php?id=81 and I have seen a further reference to him as an English coach.

[jeroen]

Harry Fitzpatrick was a PoW in Germany until ca. March 1918 .Thousands of prisoners were allowed to go to the Netherlands in 1918, where they stayed until the end of the war.

[Spireite historian]

A grandson of Harry (Gordon, I think his name is) works as a tour guide at Anfield.