Jean Longstaff has submitted the following:-

Anna Maria Violetta Jerome from Ashbourne, Derbyshire married Sunderland born John Henry Bell in Wales in 1877 and they returned to the north east to set up home in Monkwearmouth, Sunderland where John was manager of the iron works. Their oldest son Philip Jerome was born in 1879, followed by Kathleen, Florence and Eleanor, and lastly Edward Crosby on 5th November 1888. When Edward was born they were living on Roker Terrace and the household included a housemaid, a cook and a nurse.

John Henry and his family moved to Glasgow and it was there in 1900 Anna died. Philip Jerome emigrated to Australia, married and died there in 1962. In 1911 John Henry, widower was a visitor at The Cumberland Hotel, Sunderland. He gave his occupation as Inventor and Patentee, Iron manufacture. There are a number of patents advertised in the Sunderland Echo in the 1880s.

At some time Edward spent two years in the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders and also worked as a bank clerk. When he left for Canada on 17th September 1911 he sailed from Glasgow to Quebec on board the SS Cassandra and the manifest lists him as making for Manitoba and a job as a bank clerk; four years later he was working in a bank, but in Calgary, Alberta. When he enlisted in the Canadian Expeditionary Force in Macleod, Alberta on 2nd March 1915 he gave his father in Sunderland as his next of kin, mentioned his time in the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders Cycle Corps in England and became Private 552541 in the 13th Canadian Mounted Rifles. A second attestation paper named Edward’s wife as his next of kin, signed after his marriage on 27th November 1915 to Jean Daisy Holm Adam and gave an address on 16th Avenue West in Calgary. The 1916 census of Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta listed them as living in Medicine Hat, Alberta, although George was marked as being a soldier overseas.

By 6th July 1916 George was in England, based at Shorncliffe Camp in Kent, and later that month was transferred to the Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry Depot and was posted to their pay office, before being seconded to the main Canadian Pay Office in Horseferry Road, London. February 1917 saw Private 552541 at Seaford Camp and the following month he was posted to France with the PPCLI.

It was during the fighting at Passchendaele on 31st October 1917 that George was reported wounded, a report that changed at the beginning of December to “killed in action”. The Circumstances of Casualty report reads “this soldier last seen taking cover in a shell hole within 50 yards of the pill box, which was used as number one company HQ. No details relative to the actual circumstances of death are available”.

Edward Crosby Bell is one of the many names on the Menin Gate memorial in Ypres, Belgium, dedicated to the British and Commonwealth soldiers who were killed in the Ypres Salient of World War I and whose graves are unknown.

Edward Crosby Bell is remembered in Sunderland on S140.048 part 9 page 200 and in Canada on the Virtual War Memorial and in their Book of Remembrance, and also the Bank of Hamilton War Memorial Plaque, Hamilton, Ontario.

Canadian Book of Remembrance page 199
Canadian Virtual War Memorial
The CWGC entry for Private Bell