Jean Longstaff has submitted the following:-

Eli’s father, also named Eli, was living in Shotton by 1871, having moved from Somerset with his first wife and three children. His first wife died in 1880 and Eli married Jane Wright the following year and they moved as a family to Quarrington Hill, and then on to West Cornforth where young Eli was born on 22nd February 1885, followed by Frederick, Sarah and Emily. By 1891 the enlarged family of Eli and Jane and their four children plus Eli’s three from his first marriage were living together in four rooms in Sharpes Buildings, West Cornforth. Eli’s mother died in 1897 and at the time of the next census he and his younger sister Emily were living with their stepbrother Henry and his wife and family in Railway Terrace and Eli was working as a miner, as had his father before him.

In September 1907 Eli travelled to the USA and married Hannah Cope in Monongahela, Pennyslvania. Hannah was originally from Coxhoe and had only arrived in the US a few months previously. They returned to England and set up home in Balaclava Street, West Cornforth where their three children Eva, Arthur and Alice were born. April 1914 saw the Rossiters say goodbye to England when they arrived in Philadelphia to visit Hannah’s family in Monongahela, before crossing the border into Canada the following March, making for Clarkson, Ontario.

The Rossiter family spent Christmas together in their new home and then on 29th December 1915 Eli enlisted in the Canadian Expeditionary Force in Toronto becoming Private 770067 of the 124th Battalion, based at Niagara Camp, just two hours away from home, but was then transferred to camp at Borden before embarking for England on 7th August 1916 on the SS Cameronia to be based at Witley Camp, near Godalming, Surrey.

In December Eli was transferred to Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry, joining his new unit in France at the start of the new year. In 1917 as part of the Canadian Corps, the regiment took part in the Battle of Vimy Ridge on 9th April, and it was here that Private 770067 died from wounds received in an attack south east of Thelus.

Eli's nephew Thomas Rossiter son of stepbrother Henry also died in WW1.

Eli Rossiter is remembered in Cornforth on C115.01 and C115.03

He is also remembered in Canada on their Virtual War Memorial and in their Book of Remembrance.

Canadian Book of Remembrance
Canadian Virtual War Memorial
The CWGC entry for Private Rossiter