Lives of the First World War

Of all the Memorials in the Valley, none is more poignant than one that might not be noticed by the passer by. It takes the form of a glass panel bearing the name ‘Warlencourt’ above the front door of a house in Thropton. It was there that Barbara, the widow of Private Robert Gutherson lived and brought up her three children in the house and shop she had built in the centre of the village. Robert died just two days short of his 34th birthday, on 14th November 1916 during an attack on the Butte de Warlencourt, in the final stages of the 1916 Battle of the Somme. Robert Gutherson, a fine looking soldier, was the son of the late William and Isabella Gutherson of Thropton. He had married Barbara Laidler in 1910 and she bore him three children, Annie, William and Catherine. He was employed as a postman and joined the 1st 7th Battalion of the Northumberland Fusiliers, in which he was serving in France at the time of his death. Postcards addressed to ‘Master Willie Gutherston’ during his time in training at Marske before going to France show him to have been a devoted father, and in one of these he advised his three year old son: “When Daddy is away, you will have to look after Mummy” The Butte de Warlencourt is an ancient burial mound in the Somme départment of northern France. The hill had earned an evil reputation during the battles of WWI, because it dominated the British lines and was used for artillery observation by the Germans. It was very strongly defended and a number of attempts to capture it had met with heavy casualties. The Commanding Officer of another North East battalion said later: “The Butte itself would have been of little use to us ... but it had become an obsession. It loomed large in the minds of the soldiers in the forward area ... so it had to be taken.” Zero Hour on 14th November 1916 was in the early morning and, by late evening, the attack had failed and the Battalion had withdrawn with heavy casualties. One of these was Robert Gutherson. He is commemorated on the Thiepval Memorial to the Missing of the Somme, one of over 71,000 men of the British and South African armies who perished in the battles of the Somme and have no known grave. His name appears on a number of the Valley’s Memorials and a font in his memory was to be found in the former Presbyterian Church in Thropton. See image for other family memorial to Robert.

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