2nd LIEUTENANT LEONARD FOSTER, 15th BATTALION WEST YORKSHIRE REGIMENT (LEEDS PALS BATTALION) DIED OF WOUNDS 13th AUGUST 1916 AGED 28.

2^nd LIEUTENANT LEONARD FOSTER, 15^th BATTALION WEST YORKSHIRE REGIMENT (LEEDS PALS BATTALION) DIED OF WOUNDS 13^th AUGUST 1916 AGED 28.

On the morning of the of the 1^st July 1916, the opening day of the Battle of the Somme, one thousand men of the Leeds Pals awaited the signal to leave the relative safety of their trenches and advance towards the German trenches situated a few hundred yards away in the remains of the village of Serre. Days of heavy British shelling had reduced the landscape to a sea of craters and it was blithely assumed that the enemy wire and trenches had been obliterated. At 7.30am precisely whistles blew and the Pals climbed out of their trenches and began to fan out before starting their deliberate advance towards the German lines. But contrary to their expectations the enemy had not been subdued and instead rushed to man their firing lines and opened up a deadly hail of machine guns bullets. The Leeds men now moving forward in lines walked steadily and deliberately into this maelstrom and great swathes were cut through their ranks as men fell wounded or dead. With little to protect the them the survivors dropped to the earth scrambling into shell craters and dips in the ground hoping that their luck would hold and they would avoid the deadly harvest. By nightfall on that fateful day the bodies of hundreds of Leeds Pals lay in the open alongside even more wounded men trying desperately to return to the safety of their own trenches. Search parties were sent out to find injured comrades and many men were brought in but for others rescue would never come.

One of those who was brought back was a 28 year old architect and civil engineer Leonard Foster, a 2^nd Lieutenant in the Leeds Pals and a former pupil of Ilkley Grammar School. Earlier that day he had let his platoon of B Company into the attack but like every other officer in the battalion had become a casualty. He had lost an eye and had serious wounds to his head and shoulders probably from shrapnel. Evacuated away from the front line he was transported to the French Coast and to the Empire Hospital for Officers in London where some 6 weeks after receiving his wounds Leonard died.

Leonard Foster was one of three children of  draper John Foster and his wife Lucy in Long Preston. The family moved to Pool in Wharfedale and Leonard attended Ilkley Grammar School from 1900 to 1906 where he excelled at art and was a member of the cricket XI and eventually head boy. Upon leaving school he was articled to a firm of chartered surveyors and attended Leeds School of Art where he won prizes for his drawing and became a member of the Royal Institute of British Architects, before employment in the City Engineers Office of Leeds Corporation.

In September 1914 and along with other members of the Leeds Corporation staff Leonard enlisted as a private in the newly created Leeds Pals Battalion, the 15^th West Yorkshire Regiment. His talents were soon recognized and he was chosen for officer training and was gazetted as a 2^nd Lieutenant in March 1915. He remained with the Leeds Pals and December 1915 Leonard and his battalion where posted to Egypt before moving on to France the following year. Just before his posting he married Martha Avery Hill who had also been a student at Leeds School of Art although their time together would have been brief and she never say him again after he left for Egypt.

Today the body of 2^nd Lieutenant Leonard Foster lies with those of his parents in the family plot in Pool Cemetery and he is remembered with pride on the war memorial at Ilkley Grammar School