Current Information:

Age-31

103, Avondale Road, Mortlake

Cerisy-Gailly Military Cemetery, Somme

At the end of July 1915, 5th Division moved south to the Somme, a section of the front in the process of being taken over by the British from the French.

During the night of 9/10 August, 1915, 1st East Surrey, 14 Brigade relieved a French unit in the Maricourt trenches from the Moulin de Fargny on the River Somme to the Maricourt-Hardecourt road. The long entry in the battalion diary shows an appreciation of the deep, dry trenches and dug-outs of the Somme compared with the muddy and often water logged conditions in Flanders. It was also, at this time, a quiet area of the line and 1st East Surrey suffered only twenty casualties during the rest of August in these trenches, a low figure for the Western Front in general.