Private William Dalgleish

Private William Joseph Dalgleish, 1st/5th ( Territorial ) Battalion, Northumberland Fusiliers. He was killed in action in Belgium on 26th October 1917, aged 29, during the Battle of Third Ypres and is commemorated on the Tyne Cot Memorial, Zonnebeke, Flanders, Belgium. He was the son of John Dalgleish and the husband of Elizabeth Hann ( formerly Dalgleish ) of Darrell House, Dinnington Colliery, Newcastle-on-Tyne. The photographs give some idea of the battlefield conditions. Heavy shelling had destroyed the fragile Flanders drainage systems and heavy rains had compounded the problem. The colour photograph shows the impressive Memorial raised to the fallen of the 50th ( Northumbrian ) Division of which the Battalion was part until July 1918 when it was reduced to cadre and transferred to lines of communication duties. It was erected near the village of Weiltje in the Ypres Salient where nearby on the 26th April 1915 the Division had fought its first action of the War only days after landing on the Continent.