Private James Brotherton

Private James Brotherton, 1st/7th ( Territorial ) Battalion, Northumberland Fusiliers. He died of wounds in France on 28th April 1915 during the Second Battle of Ypres and is buried in Bailleul Communal Cemetery Extension, Nord, France. The Territorials had only landed in France on 21st April when they were rushed into Belgium to support a Canadian attack near the village of St. Julien. The attack was a fiasco and cost the Battalion heavily with nearly 400 casualties. The photograph shows the impressive Memorial raised to commemorate the fallen of 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 the Division had fought its first action of the War on 26th April 1915.