Current Information:

Age-29

8, Plympton Avenue, Brondesbury

Houplines Communal Cemetery, France

For most of the winter of 1914-1915 and through into the following Spring, the 16th London battalion, then of 18 Brigade, 6th Division were holding trenches opposite the village of Frelinghien on the French-Belgian border just to the north of Armentières with a system of reliefs whereby individual companies moved back for four day periods of rest. The battalion diary recorded that 9th April was a quiet day with ‘nothing of striking interest happening‘, except of course for Wallen Mercer who was killed. The attrition rate among British soldiers on the Western Front was on average 300 each day and 60% of these were as a result of shellfire. When not involved in an actual battle it was either shell fire or a sniper’s bullet that caused most deaths and injuries.