PRIVATE 3858 MAURICE IDESON, 51ST BATTALION AUSTRALIAN INFANTRY FORCE.

PRIVATE 3858 MAURICE IDESON, 51ST BATTALION AUSTRALIAN INFANTRY FORCE. KILLED IN ACTION 3RD SEPTEMBER 1916, AGED 27.

Joseph Henry Ideson and his wife Mary of Westwood Farm on Parish Ghyll Drive brought up two sons who would both die in the First World War. Their first son, Maurice, had left Ilkley before the war and settled in Perth, Western Australia. Employed as a ships steward, he married a local girl in 1914 and lived at 182 Lake Street, in the north of the city.

On 23th November 1915, Maurice enlisted in the Australian Infantry Force and was posted to the 28th Battalion. Three months later he boarded the HMAT Miltiades and sat sail for Europe. Landing in Marseilles he was assigned to the newly formed 51st Battalion which arrived in the Somme sector in June 1916.

 On 3rd September 1916 the 51st took part in an attack against a German stronghold known at Moquet Farm near to Thiepval. Initially successful the Australians were subject to a concerted German counter attack which forced them back to the British front line. Private Maurice Iveson was one of many Australians who fell during the battle.

It would appear that Maurice's body was recovered and buried in a battlefield grave and in 1917, his widow, Ethel, arrived in Britain determined to find photographic evidence of her husband’s final resting place. She visited the Australian Army HQ in London and wrote numerous letters but, unfortunately, no photograph was forthcoming. Sadly, the truth was that Maurice's grave had probably been lost in subsequent fighting.

Today, Private Maurice Ideson is commemorated on the Australian Memorial to the Missing at Villers Bretonneaux and remembered with pride on the war memorial at St Margaret’s and on our town memorial on The Grove.

Cross in Ilkley Cemetery commemorating Maurice and his brother Joseph

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