Corporal Francis Rand

Corporal Francis Joseph Rand, 11th ( Service ) Battalion, Border Regiment. He was killed in action in France, aged 20, on the first day of the Battle of the Somme on 1st July 1916 and is buried in Bouzincourt Communal Cemetery, Somme, France. He had been born in Hampshire and was the son of John and Jane Rand of Gainslaw Hill, Paxton. He had been an apprentice cabinet maker on the Isle of Wight but had come North to enlist in Kendal in November 1914. He fell in the attack on Mouquet Farm near Authuille Wood where the battalion suffered very heavy casualties of 471 killed or missing including 10 Officers killed and 14 Officers wounded. This Battalion was known as the ” Lonsdales ” after Lord Lonsdale who had raised in Battalion in 1914. The photo shows troops advancing over a wide no mans land with very little cover.