Memorial Plaque to staff of Eaton Company, Montrea

14th Battalion (Royal Montreal Regiment)

Jean Longstaff has submitted the following:-

John James Brennan was a printer from Liverpool, who moved to live in Newcastle with his Yorkshire born wife Margaret Eleanor Annie Wolfe after the birth of their first child in 1879. By 1881 they were living in Hamilton Street in the Westgate area of the city awaiting the birth of their first daughter Jane. By 1891 with a growing family of Margaret, William Henry, Frank and Sarah they had moved to a larger house in Thorpe Street, Elswick and then with the addition of John and Harold to Hamilton Street, Fenham. After the death of John James in January 1901 the family returned to live on Monday Street in Westgate and William Henry, aged 14, became an apprentice at a local grocers' shop.

By 1911 William was working in Liverpool where he was a despatch clerk with a canned food importer and boarding with the Parkes family in Toxteth. Several of the family emigrated to Canada, including his mother, and William found himself living in Montreal and working as a clerk at Eaton’s department store in Montreal.

William mobilized with the Canadian Grenadier Guards at Montreal about a week after war was declared in August 1914. He was posted to 'C' Company of the 14th (Royal Montreal Regiment) Battalion at Valcartier as Private 25803 and sailed to Plymouth with them, arriving on the 17th October and a posting to West Down Camp on Salisbury Plain as part of the 3rd Infantry Brigade.

After a wet Christmas spent on Salisbury Plain the Canadian Contingent was inspected by King George V in February 1915 before boarding the SS Australind and sailing from Avonmouth to St.Nazaire.

Promoted to Corporal at the end of April 1915 after surviving the first German gas attacks at St Julien, six months later on 30th November Corporal Brennan was killed when an artillery shell hit the dugout he was in at Wulverghem.

His name does not appear on any local war memorial.

In Canada he is remembered on their Virtual War Memorial and in their Book of Remembrance, and on the Eaton Company Memorial Plaque in Montreal.

Canadian Book of Remembrance
Canadian Virtual Memorial
The CWGC entry for Corporal Brennan