Lives of the First World War
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Essex Farm Cemetery, West-Vlaanderen, Belgium.
Essex Farm Cemetery, West-Vlaanderen, Belgium.
Essex Farm Cemetery, West-Vlaanderen, Belgium was the location of an Advanced Dressing Station (ADS) during the First World War. The concrete buildings used by the dressing stations can still be seen in the cemetery today. A project to restore the surviving bunkers at the dressing stations was carried out by the town of Ypres. The bunkers represent the largest number still visible and located together in the Ypres Salient area. The land south of Essex Farm was used as a dressing station cemetery from April 1915 to August 1917. The burials were made without definite plan and some of the divisions which occupied this sector may be traced in almost every part of the cemetery, but the 49th (West Riding) Division buried their dead of 1915 in Plot I, and the 38th (Welsh) Division used Plot III in the autumn of 1916. It was here that Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae wrote the poem In Flanders Fields in May 1915. Born in Ontario in 1872, McCrae was a physician with the Canadian Army Medical Corps during the Second Battle of Ypres. It was written at his dressing station. He died on 28 January 1918, of pneumonia and a monument in the cemetery commemorates the poem. He is buried in Wimereux Communal Cemetery. One of the youngest fatalities in the British Army in the First World War, Rifleman Valentine Joe Strudwick of the 8th Battalion Rifle Brigade who died on 14 January 1916, aged 15, is buried in Plot I, Row U Grave 8. The 49th Division Memorial is immediately behind the cemetery, on the canal bank.
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Born 1893
Died 1916
British Army Second Lieutenant Bedfordshire Regiment
More about Douglas William Mcmichael -
Born 1897
Died 1916
British Army 17476 Private Bedfordshire Regiment 8th Battalion.
More about Douglas Eaton Enticknap -
Born 1897
Died 1915
British Army 2094 Lance Corporal West Yorkshire Regiment
British Army 2094 Private West Yorkshire Regiment
British Army 2094 Lance Corporal West Yorkshire Regiment (Prince of Wales's Own)
More about Ronald Marshall -
Born 1879
Died 1916
British Army 27138 Private Durham Light Infantry 10th Battalion
More about George Hall -
Born 1896
Died 1917
British Army 29991 Private Inns of Court Officers Training Corps
British Army Second Lieutenant Hertfordshire Regiment
British Army Captain Hertfordshire Regiment
More about Eric Butter Smallwood -
Born 1894
Died 1916
British Army S2228 Private Rifle Brigade 10th Battalion
More about William Painter -
Born 1896
Died 1916
British Army S367 Private Rifle Brigade 10th Battalion
More about Herbert Stillwell -
Born 1894
Died 1916
British Army 12708 Private Durham Light Infantry
British Army 12708 Lance Corporal Durham Light Infantry 10th Battalion
More about Joseph Coulthard -
Died 1916
British Army 8452 Private Coldstream Guards 2nd Battalion
More about Samuel Jackson -
Died 1916
British Army R/2713 Private King's Royal Rifle Corps 10th Battalion
More about Walter Sharley -
Born 1881
Died 1916
British Army 23112 Private Bedfordshire Regiment 8th Battalion
More about Samuel Clark -
Born 1897
Died 1916
British Army S/714 Acting Corporal Rifle Brigade
British Army S/714 Lance Corporal Rifle Brigade 12th Battalion
More about Alfred Quick -
Died 1916
British Army 6958 Private Coldstream Guards 2nd Battalion
More about George Pache -
Born 1887
Died 1916
British Army 12357 Private Durham Light Infantry 10th Battalion.
More about Ernest Ridley Robinson -
Born 1898
Died 1917
British Army 22838 Pioneer Leicestershire Regiment
British Army 129020 Pioneer Royal Engineers P Special Company
More about John William Bennett -
Died 1916
British Army 6797 Private Coldstream Guards 2nd Battalion
More about Isaac Simpson -
Born 1896
Died 1916
British Army Temporary Second Lieutenant Royal Artillery
British Army Private Fife and Forfar Yeomanry
British Army Second Lieutenant Royal Field Artillery
More about Ord Adams -
Died 1916
British Army 14864 Private Coldstream Guards
More about William Harvey Townley -
Died 1916
British Army S 9292 Corporal Rifle Brigade (The Prince Consort's Own) 1st Battalion.
More about William John Chamberlain -
Born 1896
Died 1916
British Army 11108 Private Royal Warwickshire Regiment 1st Battalion
More about Alfred James Sherbon