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Joseph Zorian was born in Salford in December 1897, and was the third son of Kevork and Helen Zorian. His parents were Armenian Christian who had been driven from their home in Diabekir which is now in Eastern Turkey by pogroms in 1895.

The family worshipped at St Chad's Church in Romiley and the 1911 census records Kevork Zorian as being a missionary to the Armenian community in Manchester. They lived at a house in the village that they called Ararat after the Armenians sacred mountain.

Joseph described as being 'a handsome and good boy, a youth for parents to be proud of.' enlisted into the 2nd Battalion of the Royal Welsh Fusiliers in March 1917, and was sent to Messines in Belgium where he was severely wounded by a shell on 11 October. Despite treatment at a base hospital he died two days later aged 19.

Joseph's family did not remain in Romiley and by the early 1920s, his parents had emigrated to America.

Location: Romiley, Stockport Photograph of Joseph Zorian, courtesy of Dottie Frum
Presented by Jonathan Ali

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