The information given below in respect of some of the brethren is the best possible conclusions from Lodge records, Grand Lodge records & Commonwealth War Graves Commission.

2462 Clarence Lodge
Year of Warrant 1893
New Masonic Hall West Hartlepool
158255 Gunner BATTERSBY William Fosdick
Royal Garrison Artillery

A Clerk residing at 19 Eamont Gardens, West Hartlepool, he was Initiated on the 23rd May 1907 aged 29; Passed 22nd August 1907 and Raised on the 12th December 1907. He enlisted at Hartlepool on the 1st December 1915 and went to France on the 13th July 1917 to 9th January 1919. He was ‘Demobbed’ at Ripon on the 10th January 1919 and subsequently placed on the ‘Z’ Army Reserve. He died on the 5th December 1919 aged 42. The husband of Ethel Battersby (nee Johnson) of 10 Billingham Avenue, Norton on Tees, County Durham. He was buried in a grave with his parents at North Road Cemetery, West Hartlepool on the 9th December 1919 aged 42.

Editor’s note

Military records state that he was awarded the Great War and Victory Medals. He was involved in an accident on the 9th December 1918 being drunk in charge of a Government vehicle and was sentenced to 14 days Field Punishment No 1 at the Fifth Army Detention Centre (France). On 14th December 1918 he was admitted to hospital for seven days with cut lips. There were three children to the marriage all born before the outbreak of war.

William Fosdike Battesby (sic) is remembered at West Hartlepool on W111.55