Current Information:

Born-Hornsey

On 26th December, 1914, the 2nd King’s Royal Rifle Corps battalion of 2 Brigade, 1st Division left their billets in Essars and marched to Cuinchy near La Bassée and into some trenches there. On 1st January 1915 the enemy captured a machine gun post and some observation posts held by 2 Brigade, 1st Division on a nearby railway embankment and at 10am the same morning a counter attack by some of 2nd King’s Royal Rifle Corps failed to dislodge them. The battalion was relieved on 4th January but two days later they were back in the line with orders to try once more to regain these lost positions. They attacked at 2pm on 10th January and managed to capture the observation posts but not the machine-gun post and in the process suffered 80 casualties. One of these was Albert Harris who was killed.