Current Information:

Age-24

19, Balham Grove, Balham

Estaires Communal Cemetery, France

The 1st Scottish Rifles battalion was part of 19 Brigade which from November, 1914 to May 1915 was attached to 6th Division. On 1st January, 1915, the battalion left its billets in Armentières and moved into trenches at Bois-Grenier where they remained until relieved on 8th January. The battalion diary has little information about their stay here so there is no information concerning the death of Frank Nelson who died from wounds on 6th January. 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.