On the Ypres (Menin Gate) Memorial, Belgium is the name of 2858 Private Joseph Thomas Bell, serving with the 1/7th Battalion Durham Light Infantry, who died 26/05/1915.

Joseph was born on the 1st November 1894, the son of the late Joseph and Alice Bell, of South Shields. His father Joseph was a house painter and later a foreman.

He was employed as a clerk at a local saw mill, and was killed in action on the 26th May 1915.

Chris Warburton Brown has provided the following:

Joseph Bell was my grandfather’s uncle, although there was only an age difference of ten years. My grandfather (Donald Harvey, 1905-1983) considered Joseph his best friend in the pre years before WW1, they shared a bed in the family tyneside flat in South Shields.

Joseph signed  up with his best friend Andrew Ohlsson. They also died on the same day. Therefore everything in Andrew’s much longer entry also applies to Joseph, including the memorials he appears on.

Joseph Thomas Bell is remembered at Harton on H104.03, at South Shields on S86.003, S86.093 and S86.127, on the 7th D.L.I. Roll of Honour and in the D.L.I. Book of Remembrance, page 130.