Chester-le-Street Chronicle
Pauline Priano has submitted the following:-
Lancelot Ellison was born September 22nd 1896 at Brown’s Buildings, Birtley, the youngest son and one of 12 children, born to James Ellison 1853 and Margaret Elliot 1856 of Eighteen Banks, of whom only 6 survived, 5 boys and 1 girl. His parents were married December 1875 in the district of Chester le Street, in 1881 they were living at Pelaw Grange where James was working as a coal miner. In 1891 they can be found living at Brown’s Buildings in Birtley eventually moving to 12, Railway Street in Craghead, James still worked as a shifter, Lancelot at the age of 14 worked as a pony driver at the pit.
Lancelot Ellison enlisted at the outbreak of war and was assigned as Able Seaman Tyneside Z/3685 Nelson Battalion to the Royal Navy Volunteer Division largely composed of surplus reserves of the Royal Navy. The 63rd Royal Naval Division was shipped to Egypt prior to serving in the Battle of Gallipoli. The Gallipoli Campaign 1915-1916 began with a failed naval attack by the British and French ships on the Dardanelles Straits in February-March 1915 and continued with a major land invasion April 25th, where they were joined by the Anzacs’, meeting fierce resistance from the Turks. They managed to establish two beachheads, at Helles to the south and at Gaba Tepe on the Aegean coast dubbed Anzac Cove. In the Helles sector June-July 1916 both sides were entrenched and ground gained was the equivalent of a few hundred yards.
Able Seaman Z/3685 Lancelot Ellison Royal Navy Volunteer Reserve, Nelson Battalion was killed or died as a direct result of enemy action, 13th July 1915 there is no information as to the location of a grave. His sacrifice is recorded on the Helles Memorial, panel 8-15, Canakkale, Turkey. It is a memorial for the whole of the Gallipoli Campaign and commemorates the 20,885 Commonwealth servicemen who died there and have no known grave. In the form of an oblique 30 metres high, it stands at the tip of the Gallipoli peninsular and can be seen by shipping passing through the Dardanelles. Lancelot was 19 years old and single, he was awarded the 1914/15 Star, British War Medal and Victory Medal.
News of Lancelot’s death came just 6 days after his family had been told that his eldest brother Richard, serving in the Medical Unit of the Royal Marines, had died July 7th 1915 also in Turkey.
His father James Ellison died September 1917 and his mother Margaret in 1921.
In God’s safe keeping. Rest In Peace.
Lancelot Ellison is remembered at Craghead on C120.01, C120.02 and C120.04
