Private James Lyall

Private James Kennedy Lyall, 1st/7th ( Territorial ) Battalion, Northumberland Fusiliers. He was killed in Belgium on 2nd February 1916, aged 21 and is buried in Maple Copse Cemetery, nr., Ypres, Flanders, Belgium. He had been born in Alnwick and was the son of Ralph and Margaret Lyall of 39 West Street, Berwick. At that time the Battalion was holding frontline trenches near Armagh Wood in the Salient and suffered casualties from intermittent enemy shelling. Before the War had been employed as a baker with the Tweedside Co-op. His Headstone is inscribed ” Until The Day Breaks And The Shadows Flee Away”. 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 on 26th April 1915 during the Battle of St Julien it had fought its first action of the War only days after landing on the Continent.