Private Andrew Murray

Private Andrew George Murray, 1st/6th ( Territorial ) Battalion, Northumberland Fusiliers. He was killed in action in France on 15th April 1917, aged 23, during the Battle of Arras. He had been born in Berwick and was the son of Andrew and Eleanor Murray of Middleton Hall Wooler. He is buried in Wancourt British Cemetery, Wancourt, France. He fell in the fierce fighting which followed the capture of Wancourt on 12th April. The photo shows British troops accompanied by a Tank in the main street of a captured village near Arras. The colour photo shows the impressive Memorial raised to commemorate the 50th ( Northumbrian ) Division of which the Battalion was part until July 1918 when it was reduced to cadre and assigned to lines of communication duties. It was erected near the village of Weiltje in the Ypres Salient where nearby at St Julien on the 26th April 1915 the Division had fought its first action of the War only days after landing on the Continent.