PRIVATE 30/343 ALBERT FEATHERSTONE 13TH BATTALION NORTHUMBERLAND FUSILIERS.

PRIVATE 30/343 ALBERT FEATHERSTONE 13TH BATTALION NORTHUMBERLAND FUSILIERS. KILLED IN ACTION, 23RD DECEMBER 1916.


A cloak of sadness would have already overshadowed the Featherstone family during the Christmas festivities of 1916. A few weeks earlier they had received the dreadful news that their son George had been killed during the fighting on the Somme. Now in the very week of Christmas they were told that their eldest son, Albert, had also died. 


George and Annie Featherstone brought their large family to Ilkley in the years immediately before World War One and lived at 3 Ash Grove off Leeds Road. Albert worked at Ilkley Sanitary Steam laundry and married Janey Wood in 1913. The following year a son, Geoffrey, was born and together they lived at 12, Leamington Terrace.

At the outbreak of war Albert enlisted in the 13th Battalion Northumberland Fusiliers and would have seen action during the battles on the Somme during the summer and autumn of 1916. Towards the end of the year Albert and his battalion moved north and took up a position to the south west of the town of Bethune. On the 23rd December the battalion were in the front line when at 7.45am they came under persistent heavy artillery and mortar fire which lasted until 2pm. many casualties were reported and 4 men were killed, including Albert.

Today, Private Albert Featherstone lies in the British Military Cemetery at Vermelles and is remembered on our war memorial in Ilkley



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