On 2 December 1918, The London Gazette recorded the award of the Military Cross to T/2nd Lt Jim Cornes of the Northumberland Fusiliers, attached to the 64th Trench Mortar Battery and on 10 December 1919 the award of a Bar. The citations describe him as displaying coolness and gallantry, setting a splendid example to his men. In the second incident, he was seriously wounded whilst exchanging machine gun fire with the enemy from an exposed position.
He would have been only 16 when WWI broke out and 20 when he received his Military Cross and, after the War, he went to Queen’s College, Oxford, where he gained a BA in 1921. He went on to gain a Diploma in theology with distinction in 1922 and an MA in 1925.
He was ordained in 1924 and served Curacies at St Bartholomew, Armley (1923-26) and St Andrew, Rugby (1926-28) and was appointed Vicar of St Margaret’s, Coventry in 1928.
Canon Cornes was 60 when he and his wife, Lilian Emily, came to Leek Wootton. In January 1965, he retired due to ill health and they moved to a bungalow on Warwick Road, Leek Wootton, but sadly his wife died in the September of the same year.
He died in Devon in September 1983, aged 84.
Vicars of Leek Wootton
Predecessor: Andrew Archer Thomson | Successor: Charles Nettleship