SKELTON - IN - CLEVELAND
IN HISTORY
"WE WILL REMEMBER THEM"

Private JAMES ALLISON

34150 12th Bn, King's Own Yorkshire Light Infantry.

who died on the 13 April 1918.

of 31 Wharton St, North Skelton, N Yorkshire.


The Ploegsteert Memorial.

Private Allison's name does not appear on either of the Skelton War Memorials, nor on the Skelton Church plaque.
A Skelton Parish Magazine list dated 1914 records James Allison as living at 31 Wharton St, N Skelton killed 13th April 1918, confirming CWGC details.
Family not traced.

The 12th (Service) Battalion (Miners) (Pioneers) of the King's Own Yorkshire Light Infantry were formed in Leeds on the 5th September 1914, by the West Yorkshire Coalowners Association.
In May 1915 they were attached as Pioneer Bn to 31st Division.
James Allison was killed in the area of Ypres at a time when the major offensive was the German push in the Somme.
It seems some major incident took place though, as two other Skelton men from different units were killed at the same date and appear on the same memorial - William Bennison and William Pawsey.
The Ploegsteert Memorial stands in Berks Cemetery Extension, which is located 12.5 kilometres south of Ieper town centre.
The sounding of the Last Post takes place at the Ploegsteert Memorial on the first Friday of every month at 7 p.m.
The memorial commemorates more than 11,000 servicemen of the United Kingdom and South African forces who died in this sector during the First World War and have no known grave.
The memorial serves the area from the line Caestre-Dranoutre-Warneton to the north, to Haverskerque-Estaires-Fournes to the south, including the towns of Hazebrouck, Merville, Bailleul and Armentieres, the Forest of Nieppe, and Ploegsteert Wood.
The original intention had been to erect the memorial in Lille.
Those commemorated by the memorial did not die in major offensives, such as those which took place around Ypres to the north, or Loos to the south.
Most were killed in the course of the day-to-day trench warfare which characterised this part of the line, or in small scale set engagements, usually carried out in support of the major attacks taking place elsewhere.

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