Carole Fife has provided the following:
James is the younger brother of George, and he is one whose military records survived, He was the second child of Charles and Annie Collingwood, being born in Doctor Terrace, Bedlington in March 1891. The family later moved to Glebe Row and James became a miner like his father and brother. He enlisted on 31st October 1914 into the 8th Battalion Somerset Light Infantry and his attestation certificate tells us that he was 23 years 7 months old at the time of enlistment, was 5 feet 8 inches tall, weighed 154 pounds and had a 39 inch chest. He had blue eyes and brown hair. James was one of the many who enlisted early but who, despite being found fit by Dr Morris of Bedlington, was found 'unsuitable to be a soldier' and was discharged a few weeks later. He would then have been conscripted into the Tyneside Scottish in 1916 when the army became desperate for recruits. He married Annie Hogg on 8th July 1911 and they had a son, James Robert, in December 1911, and a daughter, Dorothy, in June 1913. At the time of his enlistment in 1914 they were living at 32, Mortimer Street, Hartford Colliery.
He is remembered at Bedlington on B15.02, B15.09, B15.11, B15.16 and B15.26 page 100, in Cramlington on C60.03 and in East Hartford on E8.02
