Second Lieutenant William Beattie

Second Lieutenant William Marshall Beattie 9th ( Territorial ) Battalion ( Glasgow Highlanders ) Highland Light Infantry. He was killed in action near Ravensberg in Belgium on 13th April 1918, aged 22, during the Battle of the Lys. He was the son of Jonathon and Isabella Beattie of Glendale Road, Wooler and is commemorated on the Ploegsteert Memorial, Ploegsteert, Flanders, Belgium. He enlisted as a private in February 1915 and was commissioned in February 1917. He fell in battle successfully preventing a German breakthrough during their Spring Offensive. on the Lys. Casualties over the three days were heavy and over 300 Officers and men became casualties with 71 dead. He began his working life as an apprentice in the British Linen bank in Wooler and was then transferred to a branch in Ayr where he joined the 9th H.L.I  ( a Territorial unit ) in 1915. The photographs show British troops behind makeshift defences awaiting further German advances.