Private William Norris

Private William Norris, 1st Battalion, Scots Guards.   He was killed in action in France , aged 20, on 1st January, 1915 and is commemorated on Le Touret Memorial, Pas de Calais, France. ( He is also commemorated on the Leitholm War Memorial ). He had been born in Kirk Yetholm and was the son of John Norris and Margaret Frater of Linton, Roxburghshire and Lochrig, Leitholm, Berwickshire.  The extended family made a living by labouring on the farms in the Yetholm area.  He had enlisted in August 1914 and joined his Battalion in Belgium in November 1914. He fell in an attack on German positions in the “Railway Triangle” near Cuinchy where 111 Officers and men were killed wounded and missing. The position was captured but was found to be untenable due to enfilade machine gun fire from both flanks and a withdrawal was effected.