Brigadier General John Riddell

Brigadier General John Foster Riddell, Commanding Officer, 149th ( 1st/1st) Northumbrian Infantry Brigade. He was killed in action in France on 26th April 1915, aged 52. He was the son of Sir John Riddell, formerly of Riddell in Roxburgh and the husband of Margaret daughter of the late Sir Henry Scott of Churt, Farnham, Surrey and is buried in Tyne Cot Cemetery, Zonnebeke, Flanders, Belgium. He had been born in Otterburn and was a Regular soldier. He had been educated at Wellington College followed by the Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst. He was gazetted Second Lieutenant in the Northumberland Fusiliers in 1881 and served in the Hazara Campaign of 1888 and the South African War  1899-1902 where he had raised and commanded the 3rd Battalion, Northumberland Fusiliers.  After the War he commanded the Second Battalion of the Fusiliers. In 1911 he was appointed Brigade Commander of the Northumberland Infantry Brigade. On the declaration of War he was promoted Brigadier General and went with his Brigade to France on 21st April 1915. The Battle of Second Ypres was in full swing and during the German gas attack his Brigade suffered heavy casualties. It was then that the Brigadier General went forward  with his Brigade Major to confer with his Battalion Commanders near Vanheule Farm south of St. Julien when he was hit in the head and died instantly. He had been in France for less than a week and had had the honour to lead the first Territorial Brigade to go into battle in the War. His Headstone is inscribed ” Killed Leading His Brigade But 5 Days Landed. Soldier And Great Gentleman”. The photo shows the impressive Memorial raised to the 50th ( Northumbrian ) Division of which the 149th Brigade was part until February 1918. It was erected near the village of Weiltje in the Ypres Salient where nearby on 26th April 1915 the Division had fought its first action of the War only days after landing on the Continent.