Son of John H. and Sarah T. Rewcastle, of 32 Colchester Terrace, Sunderland.
Linda Gowans has submitted the following:-
John Grant Rewcastle was born in Sunderland on June 2nd 1899. In 1901 the family, John Henry Rewcastle, Salesman in Boot Shop, born Grange, Durham, 1873, and his wife Sarah Turner Rewcastle, née Grant, born Sunderland 1874, with their year-old son John Grant Rewcastle, are with Sarah’s parents and family at 6 Murton Street. By 1911 they have their own home at 30 Guisborough Street and another son, William Alexander, born in 1906.
John enlisted at Sunderland on May 25th 1917, by which time he was at 32 Colchester Terrace. He gave his occupation as Apprentice Architect, his age as 17 years 11 months, height 5' 5¾", and expressed a preference for the Royal Engineers which was to remain unrealized as when mobilized in June 1917 he was placed in a Training Reserve Battalion and sent to Rugeley Camp at Cannock Chase, where he was transferred to the 51st Bn. of the West Yorkshire Regiment, and later to Clipstone Camp, Mansfield. He had a chequered career at camp, being admonished at Rugeley for ‘Damaging by neglect his rifle when on Active Service’, and receiving two days’ CB at Clipstone for not complying with an order.
At the end of March 1918 he was transferred to the 15th Battalion and embarked at Folkestone for Boulogne. He joined his Battalion on April 5th, and seven days later was reported missing in the field. Three days after that he was recorded as ‘Presumed to have Died’. During his week of service his Battalion was involved in the Battles of the Lys, including the Battle of Hazebrouck, April 12th-15th. He appears to have met his death on the first day, one of over 11,000 Allied servicemen commemorated at Ploegsteert who died in the sector during WW1 and have no known grave.
The Ploegsteert Memorial is in Belgium, close to the French border, north of Armentières in a triangle formed by Hazebrouck, Ypres and Lille. The sounding of the Last Post takes place there on the first Friday of every month at 7 pm. John was survived by his parents and his twelve-year-old brother William.
John Grant Rewcastle is remembered at Sunderland on S140.009, S140.010 and S140.048 part 4
