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

Private CHARLES H MOTT.

39255 9th Bn, Yorkshire Regiment.

who died, aged 20, on the 15th October 1917.

Son of John and Ada Mott, of 30 William St, North Skelton, Skelton-in-Cleveland, N Yorks


Lijssenthoek Military Cemetery, Poperinge, Belgium.

At the Census of 1901, Charles, aged 3, was living at 30 William St and had been born in N Skelton.
His father, who was a ram rider in the Ironstone mine, came from Sunningwell Berks and his mother from Loftus, N Yorks.
He had three sisters - Beatrice 10, Ethel 4 and Lilly 1.

The 9th (Service) Battalion, Yorkshire Regiment was Formed at Richmond, 22 September 1914.
It was attached to 69th Brigade, 23rd Division and took part in most of the action on the Western Front.
Prior to 1917 it had been involved in the Battles of the Somme in France.
Charles must have been badly wounded in the Third Battle of Ypres and taken back to Lijssenthoek casualty station, where he died.
An offensive was mounted by Commonwealth forces to divert German attention from a weakened French front further south.
The initial attempt in June to dislodge the Germans from the Messines Ridge was a complete success, but the main assault north-eastward, which began at the end of July, quickly became a dogged struggle against determined opposition and the rapidly deteriorating weather.
The campaign finally came to a close in November with the capture of Passchendaele.
The village of Lijssenthoek stood on the main communication line between the Allied military bases in the rear and the Ypres battlefields.
It was fairly close to the front but out of reach of most of the German Artillery.
Its relative safety made it an ideal place for casualty clearing statons and the cemetery there was used from June 1915.