Tablet 28th April 1917

An unknown newspaper carries a photo and brief report which reads:

"Rev. Father M.F. Burdess, D.D., Ph.D., Army Chaplain and late of Gosforth, has been killed."

Michael Ellison has submitted the following:

Rev. Burdess is recorded on CWGC as the son of George and Rachel Ann Burdess. He was Rector of St. Thomas', Port Clarence, Middlesbrough. Born at Sunderland, he is recorded on the NEWMP webpages entry for Ushaw College as being at the college from 1894-7 and 1909-13 and was a former professor in the College.

The Army Chaplains' website corroborates this information as to his parents and his rectorship. The site indicates that he was killed on the battlefield on 18 April 1917 at the age of 39. See link below.

He is remembered on the memorial in St Charles R.C. Church Gosforth as Burdess, Rev. M.F., C.F. and the 1914-1918 tablet in the Welfare Centre, Gosforth though the second initial is given as “S” instead of “F”).

In a Free Library entry entitled “How the Great War tore the heart out of our little community” (see link below) is the following:

“. . . .One name I didn't recognise was the Reverend Matthew Forster Burdess. He was born in Sunderland in 1877 and was relatively old when he went to Northern France in 1917. He was a Priest at St. Mary's in Stockton from 1913 to 1915 and in 1916 became Priest at St. Thomas of Canterbury church in Port Clarence. Sadly he was killed in 1917 only five weeks after arriving in France, sheltering along with six officers when a booby trapped mine went off. He is buried in Villers-Faucon communal cemetery.”

The Catholic Tablet 28/04/1917 records:

“Still another of our Catholic chaplains has met his death on our front in France. The Rev. Matthew Burdess: D.D., Ph.D., C.F., was killed on April 19 by the explosion of a mine, whilst sheltering in a chamber underground along with his colonel and some other officers. He made his ecclesiastical studies at Ushaw and in Rome, and after his ordination returned as a professor to St. Cuthbert's Grammar School, Newcastle. Early this year he gave up the charge of his congregation at Port Clarence, near Middlesbrough, to volunteer as a chaplain for active service. He was thirty-nine years of age.”

Rev. David Youngson has written a booklet about Rev. Burdess. Priced at £3, inc. postage, it is available from 35 Buxton Gardens, Billingham, TS22 5AJ.

Rev. Burdess is remembered at Billingham B139.05, Port Clarence P36.01, Stockton on Tees S138.10, at Ushaw U10.01 and at Gosforth on G9.32 and G9.21

Army Chaplain's website
How the Great War tore the heart out of our little community
The CWGC entry for Rev. Burdess