We will remember them,
October 1915 
In October 1915, two men from Alderley Edge died:
Private J W C Brocklehurst and Private G H Clarke.
(Private Clarke will be commemorated next month.)
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In Memory of Private John William Clarke Brocklehurst7041, 7th Bn., East Surrey Regiment who died on 13 October 1915 Age 25 |
Private Brocklehurst died in the Battle of Loos. On 25th September 1915 the French and British Armies began a large scale, two-pronged offensive against the German positions. While the French launched the Champagne Offensive, the British aimed to break through the German Front in Artois in what became known as the Battle of Loos.
On October 13th the East Surreys took a German trench. A letter from the Company Sergeant Major to Brocklehurst’s sister, printed in the Advertiser, tells us they mounted a machine gun on the parapet to prevent the Germans re-taking the trench, but six gunners in succession were killed by a German sniper.
“They (the Germans) were coming on in hordes and a man ran to me and said, “There isn’t a man to work the gun!” He had not finished speaking when your brother said, “Yes there is. I can.” And without another word he was on the step. He simply mowed the Huns down like grass, but the sniper had him like the others. His death was instantaneous.”
For this act of bravery he was mentioned in despatches.
John William Clarke Brocklehurst was the son of Thomas George and Sarah Ann Brocklehurst, who lived in Duke Street. He was born in 1890 and attended Alderley Edge Council School. In the 1911 census he was living as a boarder in Hackney, where he was employed as a compositor at the Abbey Press Company. He enlisted in the East Surrey Regiment in June 1915 and trained as a machine gunner.
If you know of Alderley Edge men who served in the war
and returned home afterwards, we should be glad to hear of them.
