Pauline Priano has submitted the following: -
Christopher Terry Wilson was born 1886 in Easington, County Durham and married Ethel Maud Anderson, June 1908. By 1911 they were living at No.3 Pitt Row, Shildon, Christopher was employed as a coal miner- putter. He and his wife had four children, one boy, two girls, and one deceased.
Christopher’s service record no longer exists, one of many destroyed in the blitz of WW2, however we know that at the time of his enlistment he was living at Middlestone Moor and enlisted in Spennymoor.
He was assigned to the Durham Light Infantry 1st/6th Battalion attached to the 151st Brigade, 50th Northumbrian Division.as Private 250305. His number indicates this would have been in 1915 and he would therefore have been sent to France in 1916. During his service he rose through the ranks to Corporal. The 6th Battalion were involved in the Battles of the Somme in 1916, the Battle of Arras, Messines, Third Battle of Ypres and Battle of Cambria 1917. During the Spring Offensive of 1918 the territorials of the 50th Division including the 6th Battalion were forced into the long retreat on the Somme and after being reinforced were sent back to Ypres salient in April. After the initial assault they were only saved by the German looting and consumption of liquor they had found in Estairs and Neuf-Berquin, becoming very drunk and noisy. Reduced to a total of a battalion in strength the 151st Brigade was sent to the Aisne to rest when a third German attack found them May 26th 1918.
Corporal 250305 Christopher Terry Wilson was killed in action May 27th 1918 and is commemorated on the Soissons Memorial, Aisne department, France. It lists the names of 3,887 British soldiers known to have been killed in the area from May to August 1918, during the Spring Offensive, who have no known grave. During his service he was awarded the Military Medal for distinguished active service on land. Christopher was 32 years of age.
His widow Ethel Maud received his awards of the British War Medal, Victory Medal and Military Medal. She remarried in Bishop Auckland, June 1919, to Joseph Dodds.
In God’s safe keeping. Rest In Peace.
Christopher Terry Wilson is remembered at Chilton on C107.01, C107.04 and C107.12
