North Mail and Newcastle Chronicle 11/11/1932

Photo: James Pasby

Newcastle Journal 04/05/1917 reports:-

Bensham Boys' Discovery
Soldier's Body found in a Wood.
A tragic discovery was made yesterday afternoon in a wood on the Ravensworth estate. Two Bensham boys, Joseph Robson and Edward Wilks were playing with a ball on the highway at Watergate near Whickham, when the ball went over a wall into the wood. Robson scaled the wall and was searching for the lost ball when he found the body of a soldier lying in about a foot of water in a stream that runs through the wood. The remains were in an advanced state of decomposition. The police were informed and had the body removed to the mortuary at Dunston.

The deceased had the initials of the King's Royal Rifles on his belt and appeared to be about 30 years of age, with fair complexion. There was nothing in the pockets.

Newcastle Journal 07/05/1917 reports:-

Soldier's Body Found in a Wood.
An inquest was held at Dunston Police Station on Saturday before Mr John Graham, coroner, on the body of the unknown soldier, which was found in a wood at Watergate, near Whickham. The evidence showed that the body was lying face downwards in about 12 to 18 inches of water in the brook. Deceased's cap and stick were lying at the side. The Coroner said the circumstances pointed to suicide but as there was no definite evidence to show how the deceased came to be where he was found, he thought that they had better return an open verdict. The jury returned a verdict accordingly.

Shields Daily News 17/05/1932 reports:-

Absentee for 16 years.
Mystery of a Zeppelin raid over Cocker Hall (Cocken Hall) Camp Durham, Private J.T. Hollingdrake of the Yorks and Lancs Regiment disappeared and nothing has since been heard of him.

Is he dead or alive? Is Mrs Hollingdrake wife or widow? The British Legion Conference at Portsmouth today decided to take legal action to establish the presumption that Hollingdrake is dead.

When he disappeared said Mr A.A. Jackson, Hebden Bridge, Yorkshire, his wife was 33. Now she is a middle-aged charwoman and neither wife nor widow.

There are no other references to the outcome of the legal action.

North Mail and Newcastle Chronicle 11/11/1932 reports:-

Tyne's Unknown Hero
Today's Ceremony at his Grave
"A Soldier of the Great War- Known unto God"
This inscription so tragically familiar in the Battle scarred areas of Flanders, also appears on the headstone of a grave in a peaceful cemetery overlooking the Tyne.

And while statesmen and princes are paying their homage at the national tomb in London today a similar service, probably the only other one of its kind in the country will take place at the Garden House Cemetery at Swalwell on Tyne.

No clue exists to the identity of the man who lies buried in the Garden House Cemetery. In May 1917 the body of a man aged about 26 to 28 and dressed in a tattered khaki uniform was found lying in a ditch in some woods at Watergate Colliery near Ravensworth.

It had been covered by snow and had apparently lain there all the winter.

Identification was impossible, nobody came forward to claim the body and after the Coroner had returned an open verdict it was interned in a pauper's grave.

Another Chapter
That might have been the end, but when after the war the Imperial War Graves Commission took up its work the circumstances were again fully investigated and finally the grave was officially recognised as that of a soldier though still unknown.

Thus it was that the stone perhaps the only one in England with the simple inscription "Known Unto God" was duly erected.

Another chapter, but an ??(unreadable) one was opened at the annual conference of the British Legion this year when the case was mentioned of a woman from Hebdon Bridge, Yorks. who wished to establish the death of her husband.

He had disappeared during a particularly severe air raid towards the end of 1916 from Cocken Hall near Fencehouses, where he was stationed with a battalion of the West Yorkshire Regiment. He was never seen again.

The state of the body of the unknown soldier when found showed that he might have lain in the ditch from about the time of the air raid.

It was less than eight miles from Cocken Hall to where the body was found.

That was all.

The clues were too slender to prove anything after the lapse of so many years and so he remains the unknown soldier and it as such that he will be honoured today.

Every Armistice Day since the stone was erected the members of the Swalwell Branch of the British Legion and their women folk have held a service at the grave. Today the service will be held at 3 o'clock conducted by the Vicar the Rev. T. Petitjohn.

An unidentified newspaper article, possibly dated 13/11/1937, carries the following article:

Memory of Unknown Soldier Honoured.
Members of the Swalwell and Whickham branch of the British Legion made their annual pilgrimage to the grave of the unknown soldier in Garden House Cemetery where a short service was held.

"Known Unto God" is the simple inscription on the tombstone, and the grave is officially recognised by the Imperial War Graves Commission as the last resting place of an unknown soldier. Various attempts have been made to establish the identity, but without success.

It was at one time thought that the body might be that of Private J.T. Hollingdrake of the York and Lancaster Regiment, who disappeared from a camp at Cocken Hall, near Durham, during a Zeppelin raid in November 1916. Nothing was heard of Hollingdrake after the raid and he was classified as a deserter.

The unknown man was never proved to be the missing soldier.

It was in April 1917 when the body of the unknown soldier was found in a ditch on the Ravensworth Estate near Watergate Lodge. It was much decomposed and there was nothing left on the man's uniform that might lead to his identity. The body was subsequently interred in Garden House Cemetery and each year the local members of the British Legion pay homage to his memory on Armistice Day.

The service on Thursday afternoon was conducted by the Rev. T. Petitjean, Vicar of Swalwell, who, in the course of a few remarks, said they thanked God that they were conscious of the knowledge that they had, wherever they may be, the loving and caring protection of the Heavenly Father.

This unknown warrior, whoever he may be, must have experienced the loneliness, and those who had experienced that knew what a painful thing it could be, but it was a great consolation and a great hope and comfort to know that, although they might be unknown to those among them, yet there was One who cared for them, and that One had put it into their hearts to come there year by year and remember that unknown soldier, remembering that he must have had a father and mother upon earth, who probably cared for him and mourned his loss. And they paid that tribute to this unknown soldier because they realised that no matter to whom they belonged and whatever creed they were, they all had one Father and one God, God the eternal, the immortal and invisible; and he wanted them that afternoon to be fully conscious of the fact that God the Father was looking over them that afternoon.