Photo: James Pasby
Photo: James Pasby
Son of Henry Liddle, of 39 Croft Avenue, Sunderland, and the late Elizabeth Liddle.
In Sunderland Bishopwearmouth Cemetery is a family headstone which reads:-
To the memory of
my dear wife
Elizabeth Liddle
who died Dec. 8th 1921
aged 57 years
Richard Mordey
eldest son who gave
his life in France
Sept. 15th 1916 aged 29 years
Henry husband and
father of the above
who died Nov. 30th 1961
aged 99 years
Linda Gowans has submitted the following:-
Henry Liddle from Carlisle married Lizzie Mordey in Sunderland in 1884; Richard, their second child, was born in the December quarter of 1886. The family lived at 13 Rainton Street, and in the 1901 census fourteen-year-old Richard is already working as a Journalist Office Boy.
By the 1911 census they have moved to 39 Croft Avenue; Henry is a Ship Joiner at a Repairing Dockyard, and Richard is now a Brewer’s Clerk for a Brewery and Spirit Merchant. Elizabeth Liddle died in 1921.
Richard enlisted in Sunderland, but we have no information about the date, or when he went overseas. During the First World War the Coldstream Guards gained 36 Battle Honours and seven Victoria Crosses, losing 3,860 men during the course of the war.
His Battalion was on the Somme in 1916. The battles in which it took part included Flers-Courcelette, 15th to 22nd September 1916, known for being the first tank battle. It seems likely that Henry Liddle lost his life on the first day, along with John Cummings Brydon of the Durham Light Infantry, and on the 20th J. E. Radcliffe Rosier of the Royal Field Artillery.
Serre Road Cemetery No. 2 was begun in May 1917, and much enlarged as graves from the surrounding area were brought in, including that of Richard Mordey Liddle. There had been numerous casualties since the start of the Battle of the Somme on 1st July 1916 and bodies could not be retrieved until the territory came into British hands. The majority could not be identified: Richard’s name tag enabled him to have a marked grave, one of only five of the sixteen buried in his row whose identity is known.
Richard Mordey Liddle is remembered at Sunderland on S140.009, S140.010 and S140.048 part 4
