We will remember them, December 1916 & January 1917
The Somme offensives ended in November 1916, and there were no further allied offensives on the western front until April 1917. Throughout the winter, however, trench warfare continued and two more Alderley Edge soldiers from very different backgrounds were killed in December and January.
Captain Arthur Edward Consterdine was the youngest son of the first Vicar of St Philip’s, Revd J W Consterdine. After leaving Repton School he pursued a military career, serving in the Second Boer War in Lumsden’s Horse, the name given to the Indian Mounted Infantry Corps.
He then went to Kalgoorlie, Western Australia, the centre of a gold rush. On the outbreak of war, he returned to England and was commissioned in the Prince of Wales Own (West Yorkshire) Regiment in October 1914. In May 1915, he was sent to Gallipoli, attached to the 8th Battalion, Manchester Regiment. On his return from Gallipoli, he was promoted Captain and joined the 9th Battalion of the West Yorkshires on the Somme in November 1916. He was killed in action at Hamel on 26th December and is buried in Hamel Military Cemetery. His brother, Revd R H Consterdine, was Vicar of St John’s, Lindow. He is commemorated on three war memorials: Alderley Edge, St John’s Lindow and Repton School.
An aerial view of the Church and old Rectory were Arthur Edward Consterdine lived.
Corporal John Charles Cartwright was born in Staffordshire in 1896.His father was a coachman and the family had moved to Alderley Edge by 1906, for in March of that year John Charles was admitted to Alderley Edge School from the Wesleyan School in Sandbach. He left school on his fourteenth birthday in 1910. He began work as an undergardener and then became a porter at the railway station. He enlisted in January 1915, was posted to France on 3rd August 1916 and joined his unit in the field three weeks later. The report of his death in the local paper says he was killed instantly by shrapnel on 17th January 1917. He is buried at Hyde Park Corner Cemetery, Belgium.
If you know of Alderley Edge men who served in the war and returned home afterwards, we should be glad to hear of them.