Private Walter Dryden

Private Walter Elliot Dryden, 16th ( Service ) Battalion, Cheshire Regiment, attd. 7th Battalion, Queens Own Royal West Kent Regiment. He was killed in action in France, aged 33, on the 2nd April 1918 during the German Spring Offensives. He had been born in Selkirk and was the son of the late Elliot Dryden and Elizabeth Dryden of 6 Glebe Terrace, Selkirk and is commemorated on the Pozieres Memorial, Somme, France. He has served his apprenticeship in Selkirk as a wool dyer before moving to Leeds as a dyer. He had originally enlisted in the Army Service Corps in August 1914 until he was transferred to the Cheshires in September 1917. In February his Battalion was disbanded and its members attached to other Regiments. The photographs show Allied troops preparing to resist the German advances that Spring.