PRIVATE 14838 FRANCIS ROBERT SPENCER, 2nd BATTALION WEST RIDING REGIMENT. DIED OF WOUNDS 13th AUGUST 1915.




Killed on the same day as Roy Cowling (13.08.1915), Francis (Frank) Robert Spencer was from Addingham where he lived with his parents on Bolton Road. A labourer before the war he joined the Duke of Wellingtons and was posted to the 2nd Battalion. He arrived at the front in May 1915 and by August was with his Battalion in the Somme area. On the day of his death he was stood on the parapet of the trench when he was shot, probably by a sniper. The bullet entered his right arm and continued into his chest. Wounded he was removed to a Field Ambulance unit a few hundred metres behind the lines, but was found to be dead. Private Frank Spencer is buries at Point 110 Old Military Cemetery and remembered on both the Ilkley and Addingham Memorials



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