On the Menin Gate Memorial, Ypres, Belgium is the name of 2647 Private Gilbert Forster Haddock, serving with the “D” Company 1/7th Battalion, Durham Light Infantry, who died 24/05/1915.
The son of the late W. T. and Emily Constance Haddock, of Sunderland. He had gained a B.Sc. (Honours), London.
Edward Wild has submitted the following:-
Born in the village of Ingleton, Yorkshire, in 1888, Gilbert was the only son of William and Emily Haddock. William was a mining engineer originally from County Durham who at the time of Gilbert’s birth appears to have been working in the small coalfield which centred on the village of Ingleton. By 1891 the family had returned to the North East and lived in the village of Ryhope near Sunderland.
Gilbert was sent as a boarder to Ilkley Grammar School and appears to have remained there until he was 18 years old. His headmaster, Mr Swan, described him as …..a quiet gentle studious boy, absolutely trustworthy and conscientious in his work, and though but slight in frame did his best in games. In 1906 he gained a position with the North Eastern Engineering Company in Sunderland and attended the town’s Technical College to study engineering. Clearly talented Gilbert was awarded a prestigious Whitworth Exhibition and using this was able to complete an external degree in engineering from London University and was awarded a B.Sc. with honours in 1910. It seems that Gilbert’s mother died about this time and as his father had taken a mining job in South Africa so he lived with an aunt, Elizabeth Haddock, a private school principal, at 16 Azalea Street South in Sunderland.
Early in the war Gilbert enlisted into the 1/7th Battalion, Durham Light Infantry, a territorial unit based in Sunderland, who as part of the 50th (Northumbrian) Division arrived in France on the 19th April 1915. With the 2nd Battle of Ypres at its height and German attacks threatening that important city, the Division was moved into Belgium and despite being barely trained and with no experience of trench warfare the 1/7th arrived in the Ypres Salient.
To acclimatise to life in the trenches the battalion was split between two experienced regular Battalions and thus A and B Companies, which included Gilbert, were attached to the 3rd Royal Fusiliers. On the 24th May 1915 the Gilbert was with his company in the front line trenches on the Bellewaarde Ridge north of the village of Hooge. At 2.30am the Germans launched a gas attack on the British positions using chlorine gas. British respirators were rudimentary and soon men where succumbing to the effects of the gas. A heavy enemy artillery bombardment followed and a subsequent infantry attack pushed the British defenders out of the positions. Casualties amongst the British battalions were heavy and many hundreds of men were killed including Gilbert.
Private Gilbert Forster Haddock has no known grave and is commemorated on the British Memorial at the Menin Gate and remembered with pride on the war memorial at Ilkley Grammar School
Gilbert Forster Haddock is remembered at Sunderland on S140.005, S140.048 part 02, S140.071, S140.075 and S140.082, on the 7th D.L.I. Roll of Honour and in the D.L.I. Book of Remembrance page 130.
