LANCE SERGEANT 24923 REGINALD ( REGGIE ) JAMES BEANLANDS, 25th BATTALION NORTHUMBERLAND FUSILIERS ( 2nd TYNESIDE IRISH ).

LANCE SERGEANT 24923 REGINALD ( REGGIE ) JAMES BEANLANDS, 25th BATTALION NORTHUMBERLAND FUSILIERS ( 2nd TYNESIDE IRISH ). KILLED IN ACTION 28th APRIL 1917, AGED 22

The Beanlands family were well known in Ilkley in the early part of the 20th Century not least because they owned three prominent grocers shops in the town. Reggie Beanland was indeed born above one of the Beanlands shops at 12 The Grove in 1894. His father Joseph worked in the family business with other relatives and Reggie himself would join the family firm at the shop owned by Ellis Beanlands on Bolling Road, Ben Rhydding. In the years before the First World War Joseph would take his family to live in a comfortable terraced house called Heber Villa on Lister Street, off Skipton Road. 

                                                 Beanlands shop on The Grove, Ilkley

Reggie Beanlands enlisted in the army in August 1914 following a recruitment meeting in the King's Hall, which called for the formation of an Ilkley Pals Company. This unit comprised men from the town who would have been well known to each other and it was the idea that they would serve together that surely encouraged them to enlist in the same unit. 

Within just a few days the Ilkley Pals, now part of the 9th Duke of Wellington's Regiment, left the town, with some ceremony, as they moved to a training camp where these civilians would be turned into soldiers.Within a few days they arrived at a large training camp at Wool, Dorset on the south coast and it was here that Reggie was involved in a wrestling bout where he managed to fracture his right tibia just below the knee. Although, not a serious injury recovery and recuperation would take several months and Reggie would not return to be with his pals from Ilkley.
After recovering from his injury, Reggie, was assigned to the 1st West Yorkshire Garrison Battalion and posted to Malta and was later transferred to the Northumberland Fusiliers also on the island.

The heavy casualties of the Somme Campaign in 1916 meant that the army on the Western Front was in urgent need of reinforcements. In December of that year Reggie found himself at the notorious depot base at Etaples near the French coast where he was assigned to the 25th Battalion Northumberland Fusiliers. Known as the 2nd Tyneside Irish, the battalion, made up largely of men from County Durham and Tyneside, had a reputation as a hard fighting unit. Probably overused the battalion had suffered terrible casualties during the previous 6 months and was in urgent need of manpower. On 26th January 1917 Reggie joined the battalion as part of a large draft of reinforcements and in the following few months would have seen much fighting. Clearly, he was highly thought of and was rapidly promoted to the rank of Lance Sergeant.

In April 1917 the battalion was heavily involved in the offensive in the Arras sector, where it was repeatedly thrown against the German front line. On the 28th April the Tyneside Irish were in the front line just north of the village of Rouex when it was once again asked to attack the German trenches. The battalion fought its way across no man’s land and despite fierce enemy resistance achieved all its objectives. But the casualty rate was dreadful and the battalion lost nearly half its men including Reggie Beanlands.

Reginald James Beanlands has no known grave and is commemorated on the Memorial to the missing at Arras he is also remembered with pride on the war memorials at St Margaret’s Church and on The Grove.

The photograph above, courtesy of James Cooper, shows men from the Ilkley Pals Company in September 1914. It was taken outside the Drill Hall on Leeds Road and Reggie Beanlands is marked by the number 2.