Ilkley in The First World War by Edward Wild

PRIVATE 28235 FRED NORMAN WOOD 12th BATTALION GLOUCESTERSHIRE REGIMENT. KILLED IN ACTION 4th OCTOBER 1917 AGED 29 Fred Wood was born in 1889 in the Great Horton district of Bradford, the only son of Charles, a chartered accountant, and his wife Ellen. The family moved into Ilkley when Fred was a child to live at a house known as 'The Oakes' on Easby Drive. Educated at Ilkley Grammar School Fred's chosen career was as an accountant probably in his father’s firm in Brad ford. In 1911 he married a local girl called Cora Wood and together they seem to have moved to Bristol, Gloucestershire. Fred enlisted into the 12 Battalion Gloucestershire Regiment in 1916 and in 1917 was sent to the Western Front. On 4th October the battalion was in reserve just behind the front line near to Sanctuary Wood south west of Ypres when it came under heavy German artillery fire which caused many casualties including Fred who was killed. It is likely that Fred was buried near to...

2nd LIEUTENANT HUGH COLBORNE GRAHAM. 9th BATTALION YORKSHIRE REGIMENT (GREEN HOWARDS). KILLED IN ACTION 1ST OCTOBER 1917 AGED 29                                                  As a schoolboy at Winchester College Hugh Graham was born in the Sculcoates area of Hull on the 7th August 1888 the second child of Christopher and Mary Graham. In about 1899 the family moved to Ilkley where they lived at Highmoor on Hangingstone Road. Sent away to school at an early age Hugh was first educated at a small prep school in Scarborough called Bamcote and then, in 1 902, he was sent to the famous public school, Winchester College, in Hampshire. However, he only stayed for a year at Winchester before moving back to Yorkshire as a boarder at Giggleswick School near Settle. His schooling finished in 1906 when he went on to Leeds University to take a degree in scie...

LANCE CORPORAL 13797 JOHN WESLEY AMOS, 10th BATTALION WEST RIDING REGIMENT. KILLED IN ACTION 20th SEPTEMBER 1917, AGED 33  A Coy, 10 th West Riding Regiment. Courtesy Bill Smith, Tunstills Men In late August 1914, Jack Amos, an accountant from Rhyl was staying with his married sister who lived at Bron Haul on St James Road in Ilkley. In the final week of that month, the town had been swept by an army recruitment drive which had culminated in the formation of an Ilkley 'Pals Company'. Places in this unit had been strictly limited and this left many local men desperate to find a unit which would allow then to enlist as volunteers. A certain H G Tunstill of Otterburn had called for a company of men to be formed in the nearby Craven District and in early September a group of about 20 men set out from Ilkley for neighbouring Addingham to enlist in what was to become 'Tunstills Men'. Jack Amos was one of these volunteers, for instead of returning to his native Nor...

PRIVATE 64293 WALTER LAYFIELD 214 COMPANY MACHINE GUN CORPS. KILLED IN ACTION 20th SEPTEMBER 1917 AGED 20. Walter was the second of James and Frances Layfields sons to be killed on the Western Front in 1917. Three months earlier an older brother, Charles, had died at the Battle of Messines. Born in 1896 Walter was raised on the Willow Hall Farm near Denton and was one of ten children.  On 10th December 1915 Walter travelled to Keighley where he volunteered for the army, however, as he was not immediately required he returned home to await his call up. Mobilized on 27th July the following year he made his way to Halifax where he enlisted into a training battalion of the Durham Light Infantry. later that year on 12th December 1916 he transferred to the 214th Company Machine Gun Corps which was being formed at Grantham in Lincolnshire. The 214th Company arrived in France on the 16th March 1917 as part of the 58th (London) Division and moved into positions on the ...

LANCE CORPORAL 30142 JAMES LISTER PETTY,10th BATTALION WEST RIDING REGIMENT. KILLED IN ACTION 19th SEPTEMBER 1917 AGED 31 Born in the Little Horton district of Bradford James Lister was the son of Titus and Martha who lived on Fitzgerald Street. His father was a draper with a shop on St Georges Square and from an early age, James, worked in the shop as his assistant.  The early death of his father meant that James would have to seek alternative employment and he became a travelling salesman with a firm of worsted merchants. In December 1912 he married a local girl Fanny Wright and moved to Ilkley where they lived at a house known as Throstle Nest on South View Road (today Valley Drive) at its junction with Wheatley Lane where, the following year a son, James Donald, was born James volunteered for the army in December 1915 under what was known as the Derby Scheme which allowed him to defer his actual call up until a later date. It was during the following year that...

CAPTAIN GEORGE CORRALL TURNER, 2/6th BATTALION WEST YORKSHIRE REGIMENT. KILLED IN ACTION 13th SEPTEMBER 1917 AGED 32 Corrall Turner was born in Ilkley on 27th September 1884 the son of John Turner a cotton yarn agent and his wife Sabina. The family, including Corralls older brothers, lived in various houses across the town before finally settling at Newlands on Grove Road. Educated at Ilkley Grammar Corrall also spent a year at Sedbergh School leaving in 1901 to take a  degree in engineering at Leeds University. Moving to Kendall in Cumberland, after the completion of his degree, he worked as an engineer and became a member of the Lake District 'Fell and Rock Climbing Club'. In about 1910 and a now a member of the Institute of Civil Engineers Corrall set sale for Canada were he worked in the province of British Columbia. At the outbreak of war in 1914 he returned to England and enlisted into the Leeds University Officer Training Corps before transferring to t...

PRIVATE 19461 CHARLES HUDSON, 2nd BATTALION WEST RIDING REGIMENT. DIED OF WOUNDS 10th SEPTEMBER 1917 AGED 30 The only son of Jacob and Mary, Charles Hudson, was born in Leeds in 1888. The Hudson family moved to Ilkley in about 1899 when they took up residence at in a terraced house at 22, Middleton Road. Educated at the Catholic School which was then attached to Sacred Heart Church on Stockeld Road, upon the completion of his education he was apprenticed to Mr H S King  who was a watch maker with a shop in the Market Place in Otley. Charles was still living with his parents when in December 1915 he enlisted into the West Riding Regiment at their depot in Halifax. It was not until March the following year that he was called up and after training was posted to the 2nd Battalion in France in July 1916. Within a couple of months Charles was back in England suffering from septic poisoning and sent to a hospital in Birmingham. On 31st March 1917 Charles returned to Fra...