Corporal George Patterson

Corporal George Patterson, 1st/7th ( Territorial ) Battalion, Northumberland Fusiliers. He was killed in Belgium on 12th June 1915, aged 19,  whilst a member of the machine gun section and is commemorated on the Menin Gate, Ypres, Flanders, Belgium.  He was the son of George and Alice Patterson of 73 Low Greens, Berwick. At that time the Battalion were holding front line trenches near Sanctuary Wood in the Hooge sector of the Ypres Salient and suffered casualties from enemy shelling. Only two months previously he had saved a comrade from drowning whilst bathing the sea at Cambois. The gun used was the Vickers water cooled machine gun and was used in both defensive and offensive fire. The photo shows the impressive Memorial raised to the 50th ( Northumbrian ) Division of which the Battalion was part until February 1918 when it was transferred to the 42nd ( East Lancashire ) Division as the Pioneer Battalion. It was erected near the village of Weiltje in the Ypres Salient where nearby during the Battle of St Julien the Division had fought its first action of the War only days after landing on the Continent.