Current Information:

Born-Harringay

Enlisted-Tottenham

Merville Communal Cemetery, France

On 28th March, 1915, the 2nd Middlesex battalion of 23 Brigade, 8th Division, moved into the front trenches near Fleurbaix in France, where they remained until relieved on 31st March. The battalion diary provides no information about this period spent in the front line so the circumstances of the death of John Burchell, who died from wounds on 29th March, are not known. 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.