PRIVATE 12906, FARRELL DIXON, 9TH BATTALION WEST RIDING REGIMENT (ILKLEY PALS).


PRIVATE 12906, FARRELL DIXON, 9TH BATTALION WEST RIDING REGIMENT (ILKLEY PALS). KILLED IN ACTION 2ND MARCH 1916.




On 2nd March 1916 the Ilkley Pals company were in the reserve trenches behind the front line near to Ypres. All day they were subject to intermittent, heavy shelling. This German artillery fire would result in the death of two Ilkley man. 

The first to die was 24 year old Farrel Conway Dixon. Farrel was raised on the Fylde near to Blackpool and had worked in the Winter Gardens at Morecombe. Some time before the start of the war he came to Ilkley and was employed as a barman at the Star Hotel on Leeds Road. Another Ilkley Pal, Fred Hudson, reported "..sadly, F Dixon was killed the other day. Poor lad. I was only laughing with him just before. Me and another lad buried him: it was a good grave considering we were under shell fire". 

Private Farrel Dixon's grave was lost during the war and he is now commemorated on the Menin gate Memorial to the missing. He is also remembered on Ilkley War Memorial, where his christian name is mis-spelled as Farrell.

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