Cemetery Study: Lonsdale Cemetery, Authuille
Despite its full title being Lonsdale Cemetery, Authuille, only a small portion of the western end of the cemetery lies within the Authuille commune. The remaining part falls within Aveluy.
Like many of the large CWGC
cemeteries, the burials at Lonsdale Cemetery are a mix of original battlefield
burials and concentrated graves brought in later from other cemeteries, or of
individual (or clusters of) sets of remains found during battlefield clearances.
Where a cemetery contains a mix of original and concentrated burials, the
general rule is that the original burials form Plot I, regardless of where they
are within the cemetery. These plots are often visibly less ordered than the
concentrated burials, with the original burial layout being preserved, while
later burials in the remaining plots convey the neatly laid out ‘serried ranks’
of headstones which can be reminiscent of formations of troops on parade. In
the case of Lonsdale Cemetery, Plots I and II are laid out with most of the burials
running at 90 degrees from the remaining eight plots in the cemetery. At the
western end of the cemetery, against the boundary wall, are the special
memorials to officers and soldiers who are known or believed to be buried in
the cemetery, but whose exact burial details are now lost.
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| Plan of Lonsdale Cemetery showing locations of West Yorkshire Regiment TF men's graves [Base image - CWGC] |
Lonsdale Cemetery is named for
the dead of the 11th (Service) Battalion (Lonsdale), the Border
Regiment who were buried in Lonsdale Cemetery No. 1, on which Plot I is formed,
and Lonsdale Cemetery No. 2, which was concentrated into the cemetery later.
There is the grave of a Victoria
Cross recipient buried in the cemetery. Serjeant John Yuill Turnbull of 17th
Bn Highland Light Infantry was awarded the decoration for his actions in defending
the portion of the Leipzig Redoubt that his battalion captured on 1st
July 1916. Although the men under his command were replaced several times after
losses inflicted by German counterattacks, the Scotsmen, led by Sjt Turnbull
held their ground, and Sjt Turnbull himself fought on almost alone until he was
killed while fending off another counterattack with grenades. John Turnbull’s
body was exhumed from his original battlefield grave, his identity confirmed by
his ID disc, and concentrated into Lonsdale cemetery in January 1921.
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| Sjt John Yuill Turnbull VC |
There are now twenty-nine
officers and soldiers of the West Yorkshire Regiment buried in Lonsdale
Cemetery, twelve of whom are casualties who were in Territorial Force
battalions, either 1/6th, or 1/7th (Leeds Rifles) battalions.
One of them, Corporal Sam Whiston is commemorated by means of a Special
Memorial.
The cemetery is approximately
mid-way between Authuille and Ovillers-la-Boiselle, and is accessed by grassed
footpath from the road, some 200 metres away.
The cemetery was designed by Sir
Herbert Baker.
Men of the 1/6th
Battalion
2070 Private Arthur Kenneth
Bloomer, C Company
Private Bloomer, known as Ken to
his family, or Jim to his friends in the army, died of wounds on 1st
July 1916, the opening day of the infantry offensive in the Battle of the
Somme.
 |
| Pte Ken Bloomer [Jon 46614733 at Find a Grave] |
Ken Bloomer was born in Bradford
in 1895 and was the younger of two children in the family of George Caleb
Bloomer, a Schoolmaster at Bradford Grammar School, and his wife, Gertrude. The
elder child was a sister, Winifred, who was two years older than Ken.
The Bloomer family lived at 3
Belle Vue, off Manningham Lane, and within sight of the Valley Parade football
ground, the home of Bradford City FC. The house the family lived in is a
two-minute walk away from Belle Vue Barracks, where the Bradford Territorials,
6th Bn West Yorkshire Regiment, were based.
Ken Bloomer attended Bradford
Grammar School, where, despite having to repeat his fifth year, he excelled in
his studies, winning the Hastings Scholarship for 1914 awarded by Queen’s
College, at the University of Oxford. He was also an accomplished sportsman
while at Bradford Grammar School. He was a noted runner and captained the
school’s Rugby XV in his final year there. He would not, however, take up his
scholarship at Oxford.
When war was declared in August
1914, Ken Bloomer volunteered for service at the first opportunity, enlisting
at Belle Vue Barracks on 5th August. Such was the response to the
outbreak of war in Bradford that the 6th Battalion was the first
Territorial Force battalion to report itself having successfully completed
mobilisation. A place was found for him in C Company.
Ken Bloomer is listed among the
men who formed the original deployment of the battalion when it crossed to
France in April 1915. The battalion first went into the trenches in the area
near Estaires, but at the end of June, it moved, with the 49th (West
Riding) Division to the canal area, north of Ypres in Belgium. Six weeks after
its arrival north of Ypres, Ken Bloomer was slightly wounded when his company
was occupying trenches at No Man’s Cot, near Wieltje. On 11th August
1915, the positions of the company were hit by eight heavy trench mortars and
eight or nine howitzer shells. Little damage was done to the trench line, but
two men were killed.
Three weeks after being wounded
at No Man’s Cot, Ken Bloomer was wounded again in the area near La Belle
Alliance. After he recovered from his wound, it seems that Ken Bloomer served
without further incident until his death near Thiepval on 1st July
1916.
When the attacking divisions of X
Corps when into action at 7:30 am when the Battle of the Somme began, 49th
(West Riding) Division was in Corps Reserve, standing ready to exploit the
expected gains from the fighting that morning. As is well known, the attack in the Thiepval
area was not the success that had been planned for, and the attacking units
suffered heavy casualties and failed to capture their objectives. In
mid-afternoon, with only half an hour’s notice, orders were received for the
battalion to attack Thiepval from the west at 4:00pm, with C & D Companies
being in the front of the battalion, which would be on the left of the
battalions of the division order to attack.
 |
| 49th (West Riding) Division area of operations on 1st July 1916 [National Library of Scotland] |
With no clear plan, and little
idea of how the advance should be executed, the battalion set off up the hill
from Thiepval Wood in extended line formation, in full view of the German
defenders of Thiepval and the Schwaben Redoubt, lower down the slope. As the
leading companies emerged from dead ground, the Germans unleashed a huge volume
of machine gun fire into lines of men, and after a few moments, a heavy
artillery barrage began to fall among the men. One of the Company officers, 2nd
Lieutenant Hickson, who was wounded in the advance was able to get back to the
front line under the cover of darkness to make his report. He stated that every
man of his platoon advanced, but before they had got very far, he found himself
to be entirely alone after all his men had either been killed or wounded. He
was then hit himself. Very few men were able to return unwounded.
The attack was a miserable
failure as German machines were able to cover every inch of the ground the men
advanced over. Subordinate commanders saw the losses mount in front of them and
decided that committing their men to the action would be suicidal. Soon
afterwards, the senior officer left at duty in the battalion gave the order
that no further advances should be attempted.
Ken Bloomer was wounded in this
advance. He eventually found himself at the Field Ambulance Collection Post at
Paisley Avenue, in cover behind Thiepval Wood, where he died. He was twenty-one
years old.
Over the period that Paisley
Avenue was in use as a collection point, many men died there, and two small
cemeteries were created where they were buried. When Lonsdale Cemetery began to
receive concentrated burials from elsewhere, 284 soldiers and Royal Marines
were moved from Paisley Avenue and Paisley Hillside Cemeteries.
Private Arthur Kenneth Bloomer is
buried in Plot X, Row C, Grave 10.
 |
| The Grave of Pte Ken Bloomer |
1876 Private Edward Higgins, B
Company
The British had first entered the
German positions on the Leipzig Salient on 1st July, and it was here
that Sjt John Yuill Turnbull fought a series of defensive actions which would
be rewarded with a posthumous Victoria Cross.
The Leipzig Salient was of the
highest importance to the British as it gave them the opportunity to observe
German positions from Mouquet Farm in the north, to Pozières in the south,
across the Vallée Marceau.
To retain control of the complex
of trenches there, and to keep the soldiers who occupied it supplied with all
they needed to defend it against counterattacks, the British accepted a high
burden of risk to send carrying parties there to ensure the men had adequate
supplies of ammunition, food, and water.
Edward Higgins’ B Company had
gone into the Leipzig Salient on 9th July 1916 via a route of
freshly dug trenches. They moved in fighting order, with their packs being
brought to them later by carrying parties from 1/7th Leeds Rifles.
The whole battalion was ordered to hold the salient at all costs.
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| Detail of map showing Leipzig Salient in relation to Thiepval [WO 95-2792-3] |
The Germans were acutely aware of
the disadvantage it put them at to have the British occupying the salient and
were relentless in their efforts to throw the British out again. On 10th
July, the Germans kept up a heavy artillery barrage all through the day,
forcing the Bradford men to take advantage of the well-constructed dugouts. On
12th July, the Germans launched a heavy bombing attack on H Sap on
the northeast edge of the salient. In response, the Bradford launched SOS
flares to alert the British Artillery to fire a barrage on a pre-determined
fire plan to put a protective screen around the Leipzig Salient. In the melee,
other flares were being fired, as well as Verey lights, and these meant that
the British Artillery was not able to distinguish one type of flare from
another for forty minutes when the accepted response time was set at thirty
seconds.
The German bombing attack was
eventually beaten off, but not before several casualties had been incurred,
including Private Higgins who was killed. The constant fighting in the
immediate area, and the exposed location made it excessively dangerous to
recover the bodies of men killed there, meaning that, in darkness, the bodies
would be removed from the trenches and ‘buried’ in a convenient shell-hole. The
body of Edward Higgins was not recovered until April 1919, when his remains
were moved to Lonsdale Cemetery.
Edward Higgins, like Ken Bloomer,
also enlisted on 5th August 1914, and he went with the battalion
when it deployed to France in April 1915. While the battalion was in dug outs
in the canal bank north of Ypres during the first week of August 1915, Edward Higgins
was wounded by shellfire.
Edward Higgins was 31 years old and
not married when he was killed. He was one of four brothers who served in the
army during the Great War. There were also four sisters in the family, which
was headed by Walter Higgins and Mary Agnes Higgins. A fifth brother had
emigrated to the USA in 1903 and became a firefighter in Lawrence,
Massachusetts. The men in the family who stayed in Bradford worked as stuff
warehousemen, ‘stuff’ being the worsted cloth for which Bradford was world
famous.
Private Edward Higgins is buried
in Plot IV, Row E, Grave 9.
 |
| The Grave of Pte Edward Higgins |
2733 Corporal John Henry
Broadley, A Company
According to the Bradford Roll of
Honour, John Broadley enlisted in September 1914, however, the service number
allocated to John Broadley suggests that he enlisted at Belle Vue Barracks on
13th October 1914. Although an October 1914 enlistment could still
be viewed as an ‘early’ enlistment, because of the success of the mobilisation
programme in the 6th Battalion, bringing it up to established
strength within four days of the declaration of war, John Broadley was too late
to immediately be placed in the battalion that was sent off for training to
Selby on 11th August. Instead, he was sent to the ‘Reserve’
Battalion, that would become the 2/6th Battalion. Once the two
battalions settled down to start their training, many men were transferred
between the battalions, with men who were either unsuitable for foreign
service, or unwilling to sign up to overseas service being removed from the 1/6th
Battalion and transferred to the 2/6th Battalion. Their places were
taken by men in the 2/6th Battalion who were suitable and willing
for foreign service.
 |
| Belle Vue Barracks on Manningham Lane, Bradford [National Library of Scotland] |
Because of his relatively late
enlistment, and subsequent transfer to the battalion designated for overseas
service, John Broadley did not embark with the main body as it deployed to
France with the 49th (West Riding) Division. He arrived in France on
30th June 1915, just as the division was leaving the Lys valley for
service in the Ypres Salient, where it would remain until the last day of 1915.
The 1/6th Bradford
Territorials was a battalion that had some very capable officers in key
positions responsible for the training of the men within it. Those officers
would be very well placed to identify the soldiers who displayed leadership
potential, and even though there was no major offensive action in the sector
that the 49th Division occupied during the second half of 1915,
there was still a steady loss rate to the battalion with men being killed and
wounded during normal periods of trench routine. A relative late comer, like
John Broadley, who could demonstrate the ability to lead soldiers could easily
be promoted to non-commissioned officer rank in preference to soldiers who had
served for longer than he had, but who may not have shown the same leadership
potential. Within a year of proceeding on active service, John Broadley had
been promoted to Corporal. As a Corporal, he would be in command of a section
within his platoon, and would report to his platoon Sergeant, and the platoon
commander, typically a junior Lieutenant or Second Lieutenant.
Corporal Broadley was killed during
an inter-company relief operation in the Leipzig Salient on 9th
August 1916. His death came after three relatively quiet days on the Leipzig
Salient, but the scene there was markedly different to that at the time of the
death of Private Higgins. Because of the Germans’ relentless artillery barrages
and infantry attacks on the salient, much of the trench system that had existed
in mid-July had now been wrecked and could not be occupied. Efforts to restore
some order to the situation and repair trenches were frustrated by the
attentions of the enemy.
When John Broadley was killed, he
was one of three deaths during the relief, with a further thirteen men wounded.
As with the death of Private Edward Higgins, it was impossible to recover John
Broadley’s body to give him a proper burial at the time. An illustration of the
difficulty and complexity of the work of the exhumation squads that worked on
clearing the battlefields after the war was over is given in the date of
recovery of John Broadley’s remains. Edward Higgins’ remains were exhumed in
April 1919, but despite being only 300 metres from the remains of John
Broadley, it was another month before the remains of Cpl Broadley were recovered,
even though both graves were marked by rudimentary crosses. Neither grave was
found isolated from others, which strongly suggests that when the Germans
withdrew to the Hindenburg Line in early 1917, a battlefield clearance was
undertaken in this area and any remains found were consolidated into small,
temporary battlefield cemeteries.
John Broadley was another man
from a large family, being one of nine children to the marriage of Joseph and
Margaret Broadley, of 117 Westbourne Road in the Heaton Road area of Manningham
in Bradford. All the working members of the family were employed in the
textiles industries, with the men working in wool-combing, while the daughters
of the family worked with silks. Three of John Broadley’s brothers also served
in the army during the war.
Corporal John Henry Broadley was twenty-one
years old and unmarried when he was killed.
He is buried in Plot III, Row W,
Grave 5.
 |
| The Grave of Cpl John Broadley |
4047 Lance Corporal Raistrick
Fuller, B Company
1752 Lance Corporal Alfred Helliwell, B Company
Both men died of wounds of 14th
August 1916 incurred when the company was still in occupation of the Leipzig Salient.
A British attack was being made to the right of the Divisional front, and
British artillery was firing smoke to shroud the British Front line from German
observation, presumably to hide which sectors of the line were sending
attacking troops forward. The Germans, in retaliation, began firing artillery
against the British line, and it was during this relatively weak barrage that
Corporals Fuller and Helliwell were wounded.
The men were evacuated from the
line in accordance with the routes laid down by orders issued from the
Assistant Director of Medical Services (ADMS) for the 49th (West
Riding) Division, and the men were brought to a collecting post to await further
transfer to the Advanced Dressing Station at Martinsart.
In the bottom of the Ancre
Valley, across a footbridge called Yatman Bridge, just north of Authuille, a
collecting point was in use which would be the dropping off point for regimental
stretcher bearers carrying men who had been wounded. They would then be handed
over to bearer parties from the Royal Army Medical Corps who would take the
wounded men to the Advanced Dressing Station. Within the orders issued by the
ADMS was a sentence which states ‘Cases which are obviously dying should not be
evacuated from collecting points.’ It is highly unlikely that a bearer party
would continue to carry a man who died en route to the collecting point,
especially as stretcher bearers were always over stretched. The conclusion must
be that Corporals Fuller and Helliwell were both alive when they reached the
collecting point near Yatman Bridge, and that they either died while awaiting
further evacuation from RAMC stretcher bearers, or they were obviously in no
fit state to be transferred any further.
The two men were buried together,
but the exhumation records show that in the immediate area around the
collecting point, several other men were also buried.
 |
| ADMS 49th (West Riding) Division Map showing locations of medical units and positions up to Thiepval Wood [WO 95/2777/2-2] |
Raistrick Fuller was another of
the men who were relatively late in enlisting to the 6th Battalion.
He joined at Belle Vue Barracks on 20th January 1915, but despite
this, unlike John Broadley, Raistrick Fuller embarked with 1/6th
Battalion and sailed with the main body of the Division in April 1915. One
reason for this is probably the change in how the battalion recruited between
the time when John Broadley enlisted in October 1914, and when Raistrick Fuller
joined in January 1915. By the time Raistrick Fuller joined the battalion, men
were only being accepted at Bradford if they were willing to sign the Imperial
Service Declaration as part of the enlistment process. They could then be
posted directly to the 1/6th Battalion, by now in York, rather than
be fed to it through the 2/6th battalion which was acting as the
Reserve battalion. Men received in the battalion would know they were there on
a permanent basis, and their training programme could be designed around that
premise.
Alfred Helliwell, on the other
hand, enlisted into the battalion on 5th August 1914, and a measure
of the efficiency of the recruiting room at Belle Vue Barracks can be confirmed
by the ability of the staff there to enlist a hundred men per hour, which is
why Alfred Helliwell’s army number is so much lower than Ken Bloomer’s, there being
a difference of almost 250. This might only account for two and a half hours of
recruit processing.
Alfred Helliwell also embarked
for France with the main body of the division.
Alfred Helliwell was the son of
John Helliwell, a police sergeant in Bradford, and his wife, Emma. The family,
of which Alfred was the eldest of seven sons and two daughters, lived at Leeds
Road in Eccleshill, and later at West View Terrace in Idle. Four of the
Helliwell Brothers are known to have served in the army during the war,
including Lance Corporal Robert Helliwell who served in 1/6th
Battalion and was killed on 1st July 1916, six weeks before Alfred
died. Robert Helliwell is named on the Thiepval Memorial, his body having not
been identified for burial.
Raistrick Fuller was the eldest
of three surviving sons of Benjamin and Mary Fuller. Two sisters, one older and
one younger than the sons, completed the family. Of eight children born to the
family, three had died.
All the working members of the
Fuller family worked in the wool combing industry in support of Bradford’s
textiles industries.
Lance Corporals Raistrick Fuller
and Alfred Helliwell are buried side by side in Plot V, Row W, Graves 4 and 5.
 |
| The Grave of Alfred Helliwell |
 |
| The Grave of L/Cpl Raistrick Fuller |
Men of the 1/7th
(Leeds Rifles) Battalion
2763 Lance Serjeant Ernest
Drake, D Company
Ernest Drake lived at 204
Parkside Road, West Bowling in Bradford. He enlisted into the army on 8th
September 1914, by which time, the 1/6th Battalion had declared
itself ‘full’ following their successful mobilisation and recruiting for the
overseas battalion had closed for the time being. Most of the Territorial Force
units in Leeds were still advertising for men to enlist to bring them up to
established strength, and the day before Ernest Drake enlisted, his nephew,
Norman Drake, had successfully enlisted into 1/7th (Leeds Rifles)
Battalion, West Yorkshire Regiment, at the Battalion Headquarters in Carlton
Barracks. Despite being uncle and nephew, Ernest Drake was only three years
older than his eldest brother’s son, Norman. The two men served together in D
Company until Ernest Drake was killed.
The Drake family had several
professional musicians among the men. Two of Ernest’s brothers were
professional cellists, including Norman’s father. Norman was a classically
trained and gifted pianist, although he was employed as a civil engineer. Because
of his civil employment, Norman Drake was able to successfully apply for a
commission. He spent a short time as an officer in his own battalion, but soon
afterwards, he left to transfer to the Royal Engineers. During the Second World
War, Norman Drake was a deputy engineer on the staff of the River Trent
Catchment Board and was awarded the MBE in 1943 for his work in keeping the
water supply to Nottingham secure.
A brother of Norman, Roland Drake
was awarded the Military Medal in 1916 as a Bombardier with the Royal Field
Artillery.
Ernest Drake was killed as a
member of the carrying parties that took the packs and supplies to the men of
the 1/6th Battalion at Leipzig Salient on 12th July 1916, the same night as
Private Edward Higgins was killed. The two men’s remains were found in the same
location, and when they were reburied at Lonsdale Cemetery, they were interred
side by side.
Ernest Drake was 24 years old and
unmarried when he was killed. He is buried in Plot IV, Row E, Grave 10.
 |
| The Grave of L/Sjt Ernest Drake |
Captain Robert Salter
731 Serjeant Arthur Wheelhouse
Robert Salter had been a Leeds
Rifles officer since 1909, when he returned to Leeds after completing his
education at Repton School in Derbyshire. Initially, he served with the 8th
Battalion, but on his promotion to Captain, he moved across to the 7th
Battalion, and it would be with the 1/7th Battalion that he would go
to war.
 |
| Leeds Mercury 1st September 1916 |
When he was not fulfilling his
duties as a Territorial Force officer, he worked as an articled pupil to a
surveyor of estate land. Robert Salter’s father, Charles was a well-known
business owner, being a director of Salter and Salter, Bootmakers. He was also
a Justice of the Peace. Robert Salter was the only son in the family, and had a
sister, Hannah, who was five years younger than Robert.
Hannah Salter married Captain
Alan Gaunt, a Staff Officer with HQ 1st Australian Division in March
1918. Capt Gaunt was originally from Calverley, and his family owned a worsted
mill in Stanningley. He was granted his discharge in England after the war, and
initially lived at the Salter’s home at Hazelhurst, in Pudsey. Alan Gaunt would
eventually work in the Salter and Salter business.
Arthur Wheelhouse was a house
painter from Cottage Road in Headingley who worked with his father in the
family decorating business, along with younger brother, Maurice.
Judging by his army number,
Arthur Wheelhouse enlisted into the Territorial Force in 1909. Although this
new organisation was established in 1908 under the direction of the Haldane
Reforms of the Army, some of the men who served in the old Volunteer Force,
which the Territorial Force replaced were reluctant to transfer into the new
organisation, causing a delay in recruitment in some areas of the country.
Leeds was an area where the Territorial Force initially struggled to convince
the men to continue their service, and it may be that Arthur Wheelhouse was one
of those reluctant Volunteer Force soldiers.
Two of Arthur Wheelhouse’s
brothers served in the army during the war, both as officers. Wilson Myers
Wheelhouse served first as a soldier in the Army Service Corps, before
transferring to the Machine Gun Corps, before commissioning into the Royal
Garrison Artillery in January 1918.
Ralph Wheelhouse was directly
commissioned in the Machine Gun Corps in November 1917. He Was Mentioned in
Despatches.
On 26th August 1916,
1/7th Leeds Rifles had been tasked to relieve 13th Bn
Cheshire Regiment (74th Inf Bde, 25th Div). The battalion
marched from Acheux Wood to the right-hand sector of trenches on the
south-eastern edge of Thiepval Wood. Nothing out of the ordinary is reported in
the Leeds Rifles war diary on this date, but a battalion relief was a terribly
dangerous undertaking, and with so many men cramped together, even temporarily,
carried with it the potential for a disaster if the enemy launched an artillery
barrage while a relief was underway.
Captain Slater and Serjeant
Wheelhouse were both wounded by shellfire during the relief on 26th
August 1916, and both men died at Johnstone’s Post on the edge of the wood
where a Regimental Aid Post was established. Their bodies were moved to, and
buried at, Paisley Avenue Cemetery.
Captain Slater’s cousin and next-door
neighbour at Ravensmount, Thomas Huggan, an eighteen-year-old Observer Second Lieutenant in
the Royal Flying Corps was killed in a flying accident in England. He was
buried in the same plot as his paternal grandparents in Pudsey Cemetery. Their
graves had a substantial, late Victorian memorial erected on it which was
intended to serve as the gravestone for several members of the family. A
memorial inscription for Robert Salter was added to the monument at the same
time as his cousin’s details were inscribed. The inscription refers to Paisley
Avenue Cemetery, which presumably dates it to the time before this cemetery was
removed to Lonsdale Cemetery.
 |
| Hazelhurst and Ravensmount, to the east of Pudsey town centre [National Library of Scotland) |
Captain Slater was twenty-six
years old when he died, and is buried in Plot IX, Row D, Grave 10.
Serjeant Wheelhouse was
thirty-four years old, and is buried in Plot VII, Row D, Grave 8.
 |
| The Grave of Capt Robert Salter |
 |
| The Grave of Sjt Arthur Wheelhouse |
1703 Corporal Sam Whiston
Samuel Whiston was a Territorial
Force soldier who had enlisted at Carlton Barracks in February 1913 at the age
of seventeen. He was the third of four children born to the marriage of Samuel
and Ellen Whiston of Mill Street Place in Holbeck. Tragedy struck the family of
two daughters and two sons when, in 1904, twelve-year-old Nathan Whiston died.
The family was a poor one and lived in poor-quality housing in the shadow of
Holbeck Mill and the George Fletcher Brass Foundry. Nathan Whiston and both
parents are buried in Holbeck Cemetery, but they are each buried separately
from one another in subscription graves.
 |
| Mill Street Place [Leeds Library and Information Service] |
Corporal Whiston’s name appeared
the wounded in a casualty list on 25th August 1916. The names on
list correspond to casualties from 1st July 1916, so it appears that
he was wounded on the opening day of the Somme Offensive.
Sam Whiston was killed on 28th
August 1916 during the relief of the battalion from the trenches at the edge of
Thiepval Wood as 1/5th King’s Own Yorkshire Light Infantry took over
from the Leeds Rifles.
After the war, when Lonsdale
Cemetery was being expanded, and the smaller constituent cemeteries were being
concentrated there, Sam Whiston’s remains were brought to the cemetery. His
death is now commemorated by a Special Memorial at the western end of the
cemetery, which means that although he is known to be buried in the cemetery,
the location of his remains is now unknown.
Because of the date of his death,
it is highly likely that he was buried, at the time of his death, near Capt
Salter and Sjt Wheelhouse in Paisley Avenue Cemetery. That location was exposed
to shell fire for the duration of the Somme campaign, and it may be that his
original grave there was disturbed by artillery fire, leaving the remains it
contained without any identification that could be transferred with them to
Lonsdale Cemetery. While the Imperial War Graves Commission would be confident
that all the remains had been removed from Paisley Avenue Cemetery, with Cpl
Whiston’s remains among them, the Commission would not be able to identify
them. Thus arises the situation whereby a post-war concentration can only be
identified as being ‘known to be buried’ in Lonsdale Cemetery.
Cpl Whiston was 20 years old, and
his commemoration is Special Memorial B1.
 |
| Cpl Sam Whiston's Special Memorial Commemoration |
5300 Rifleman Arthur Brown
Rifleman Arthur Brown was a
relative late comer to the Leeds Rifles and didn’t arrive in France until after
the 49th (West Riding) Division had moved away from Ypres to the Somme.
His service number suggests that he volunteered in February 1916. Prior to
embarking for France, Arthur Brown was able to get leave to go home to
Burmantofts in Leeds to marry Jane Elizabeth Ingle on 20th May 1916
at St Agnes Church on Stoney Rock Lane. Three months later, he was dead, having
just had his twenty-third birthday.
.jpg) |
| St Agnes' Church, Burmantofts [©Michael Bourne @ www.churches-uk-ireland.org] |
Arthur Brown was a son of John
William Brown, who was a newsagent at the time of Arthur’s birth, but later
specialised and became a stationer and seller of fancy goods. John Brown was
married to Sarah Ann Brown, and together they had eight children: six sons and
two daughters.
Of the sons, in addition to
Arthur Brown, three of the other sons served in the war. John Robert Brown was
a coppersmith in the Royal Flying Corps and Royal Air Force. Ernest Brown was
in the West Riding Regiment and was then transferred to the Labour Corps.
Leonard Brown joined the Royal Navy and served in HMS Princess Royal.
In 1920, Jane Brown sailed from
Liverpool to New York to go to live with her mother and uncle on Pacific Avenue, Atlantic City,
New Jersey. Her stated aim was to emigrate permanently to the United States and
become a citizen. Despite there being several members of her mother’s family
already settled in the USA, America was not destined to become Jane Brown’s
permanent home, and she returned to Leeds. Jane Brown never remarried and died
in Leeds in 1973.
 |
| Postcard image of Pacific Avenue, Atlantic City, New Jersey, USA c.1920 |
Rifleman Brown was killed in the
same relief operation that killed Cpl Sam Whiston on 28th August
1916. Arthur Brown was also buried in Paisley Avenue Cemetery. When the
cemetery was cleared and the graves were moved to Lonsdale Cemetery, the grave
next to Arthur Brown’s contained the remains of ‘an unknown British Soldier’,
and it is possible, and tempting, to believe that this may have been Cpl Sam
Whiston, however, without further evidence, nothing could be done to attribute
an identification to the remains of the unknown British Soldier whose remains
were re-interred in Plot VII, Row D, Grave 1 of Lonsdale Cemetery.
Rifleman Arthur Brown is buried
in Plot X, Row B, Grave 10.
 |
| The Grave of Rfn Arthur Brown |
6025 Rifleman Walter Edward
Bloomfield
6028 Rifleman Richard Doyle
Walter Bloomfield and Richard
Doyle both enlisted on 8th December 1915 under the terms of the Group
System, or ‘Derby Scheme’. Neither man was typical of the pre-war, or early war
recruit to the Leeds Rifles, as neither lived in an area from where,
ordinarily, either of the Leeds Rifles battalions would accept recruits. In general
terms, the 7th Battalion recruited from the city centre, and south
Leeds, while the 8th Battalion would recruit from north Leeds and
the outlying areas, including some of the villages still outside of the area
that was including in the 1912 expansion of the city boundary.
Walter Bloomfield was from East Ardsley
and enlisted in Wakefield. When he enlisted, he was a twenty-three-year-old locomotive
cleaner and had been married to Mary Ann Steel for a little over two years.
Mary and Walter had two sons, Leonard, and George, born in 1914 and 1915
respectively.
Following her husband’s death,
Mary Bloomfield married, in 1919, Henry Broadhead, a local farmer from East
Ardsley, and together they had two sons, Albert in 1920, and then Alan in 1933.
Tragedy struck in 1937, when Leonard Bloomfield was killed in a motorcycle
accident.
 |
| Yorkshire Evening Post 1st September 1937 |
Richard Doyle enlisted in
Halifax, but was originally from Norfolk, having been born in Old Buckenham in
1886. His family moved north to Calthorpe, and Richard Doyle began working on a
neighbouring farm as a stock feeder. When the family moved to Seaton Ross,
between Market Weighton and York, Richard Doyle left home to go to work as a
horseman on the farm belonging to Jewitt Hunt at Seaton Old Hall.
Richard Doyle was thirty years
old when he died, and as a single man, he nominated his elder sister, Ruth Mary
Culley as his next of kin.
The war diary for 1/7th
Leeds Rifles is a poor document in terms of the narrative of events that it
provides. Unlike many other diaries of infantry battalions, the arrival of drafts
of new men from the Infantry Base Depots, and losses due to men being killed
and wounded are rarely given. For the date of the deaths of Riflemen Bloomfield
and Doyle, 24th September 1916, all that is written is ‘Nothing to
report’. The battalion was manning the front line on the edge of the wood in
front of Thiepval, with battalion headquarters at Johnstone’s Post. The 8th
Leeds Rifles was alongside with its HQ at Belfast City. Although there was no
offensive action on the part of the 49th (West Riding) Division,
sporadic artillery exchanges still took place, and both battalions lost two men
each, killed by artillery shells detonating near their lines.
Riflemen Bloomfield and Doyle
were originally buried in Paisley Avenue Cemetery, but their graves were
concentrated into Lonsdale Cemetery when the cemetery was cleared.
They are now buried next to each
other in Plot VII, Row D, Graves 6 and 7.
 |
| The Grave of Rfn Richard Doyle |
 |
| The Grave of Rfn Walter Bloomfield |
 |
| The 18th Division's Memorial at Thiepval |
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