Ploegsteert Memorial
Ploegsteert Memorial
Carole Fife has provided the following:
Edward's military record shows that he was born in Bebside and enlisted in Bedlington. His legatee was his mother, which would indicate that he wasn't married. Edward was born in 1896, the eldest child of John and Ellen Thompson. His father was a hewer and in 1911 the family were living at West Row, Hartford. I couldn't find Edward on the 1911 census, but the Enlistment Book shows him living at 266 Yard Row, Netherton Colliery. The information about Edward in the Enlistment Book differs from that in his CWGC entry as it gives his date of death as 12th April 1916. It also gives his regiment as 6th Battalion East Yorks and states that he served in the Dardanelles as well as France. As the Ploegsteert Memorial includes the names of men who died in many small skirmishes around Ypres it may well be that Edward served first with the 6th Battalion in Gallipoli, and then was transferred to the 10th Battalion but the 6th Battalion didn't arrive in France until shortly before the Battle of the Somme so the 1918 date of death is more likely to be correct.
He is remembered in Bedlington on B15.07 and in B15.26 page 120
