Private Richard Pringle

Private Richard Pringle, ” C” Coy.,1st/7th ( Territorial ) Battalion, Northumberland Fusiliers. He was killed by shellfire, aged 21, in Belgium on the 3rd February 1916 and is buried in Maple Copse Cemetery. He was the son of James and Mary Pringle of Branxton Buildings, Cornhill-on-Tweed and Longdyke, Lowick. Before enlisting he had been employed as a baker, He was a Rachabite, a member of the Y.M.M.I.S. and the Reading Room where he was Secretary. In the Battalion he was designated as a Bomber and was at the Brigade bomb store to prepare bombs when the store was shelled. He was hit and killed by a piece of shrapnel by the last shell fired. His Officer wrote a letter of condolence to his parents and sent them a button from his tunic as a memento. After the War an impressive Memorial was raised to commemorate the 50th ( Northumbrian ) Division of which the Battalion was part. It was erected near the village of Weiltje in the Ypres Salient where on the 26th April 1915 the Division had fought its first action of the War only days after landing on the Continent.

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