Alderley -World War 1. December 1915

We will remember them…               

In early December 1915, the decision was taken to abandon the disastrous Gallipoli campaign.  In what proved to be the best-executed part of the whole campaign, the peninsula was successfully evacuated by 9 January 1916.  But the end of the campaign came too late for two men from Alderley Edge:

Private Gilbert Edward Davies

Corporal Frank Barrow,

both of whom died in early December.  This month we commemorate Private Davies and Corporal Barrow will be remembered next month.

Gilbert Edward Davies was born on 29^th November 1891 to John Davies, a joiner, and his wife Mary. From the report of his death in the Advertiser in December 1915 and other records, we know quite a lot about him.  He was baptised at St Philip’s Church on 31^st January 1892 and in January 1900 he was admitted to Alderley Edge Day School.  He left at the end of 1905 to start work as an apprentice joiner at Massey’s. He was a former member of the Church Lads Brigade, belonged to the Church Band and was an enthusiastic footballer. The family lived at 21 Chapel Street.  In 1912 he married Edith Lomas, whose family lived in Moss Lane.

Gilbert enlisted at Macclesfield in October 1914, and was one of the early recruits to the newly formed 1/7^th Battalion of the Cheshire Regiment.  This battalion was despatched to Gallipoli in July 1915, landing at Suvla Bay on 9^th August. Gilbert survived the heavy fighting and the appalling conditions almost to the end. Summer heat was followed by storms and heavy rain at the end of November and then a blizzard.   It was at this point that Gilbert was wounded; he died just 10 days before the evacuation from Suvla Bay began. He is commemorated on the Helles Memorial.

Sadly his family were to suffer the loss of another son when Gilbert’s brother, Albert Vincent, died in 1917 in Egypt.  

If you know of Alderley Edge men who served in the war and returned home afterwards, we should be glad to hear of them.