12581. Private James Whyatt

9th. (Service) Battalion, Cheshire Regiment. Born in St. Paul’s, Stockport, Cheshire. Enlisted in Stockport, Cheshire. Battalion embarked on 19 July 1915 in Boulogne. Killed in Action on Tuesday 5th. October 1915, during The Battle of Loos. Buried in Woburn Abbey Cemetery, Cuinchy, Pas de Calais, France, Plot I, Row F, Grave 25. Husband of Jessie Whyatt (nee Conway) of 16 Marshland Street, Great Portland, Stockport, Cheshire. James was 1 of only 23 Servicemen with the surname “Whyatt” to have Fallen during The Great War. 1 of James’s Comrades from the Battalion was also Killed in Action on the same day, and is buried next to him in the Cemetery.

17325. Private William George Hughes, buried in Plot I, Row F, Grave 24

James was born in the Parish of St Paul's C of E Church, Great Portwood Street, Stockport. In the spring of 1894, he married Jessie Conway at St Mary's Church in the town centre. At the time of the 1901 Census, James was working as an outside labourer and Jessie as a winder in a cotton mill. They lived at 16 Marshland Street in the Portwood area. It's not known if they had children.

James' service number indicates he enlisted into the army in August or September 1914 and, after training, he would have gone overseas with the newly formed Battalion in July 1915. The Battalion's War Diary makes no reference to the day James was killed in action and it is not possible, therefore, to speculate about what might have happened to him.

James is also Commemorated on The Stockport War Memorial at the junction of Wellington Road and Greek Street.

Stockport's War Memorial takes the form of an Art Gallery incorporating a Memorial Chapel.  The names of the fallen of both world wars are inscribed on marble tablets on the Chapel walls.

LET THOSE THAT COME AFTER

SEE THAT THESE NAMES

ARE NOT FORGOTTEN.

The Battle of Loos (25 September – 13 October 1915) 

This was the biggest British offensive of 1915, and was the first time that the British used poison gas. It was also noteable for the first mass engagement of New Army (Service) units. The French and British tried to break through the German defences in Artois and Champagne and restore a war of movement. Despite improved methods, more ammunition and better equipment, the Franco-British attacks were contained by the German armies, except for local losses of ground. British casualties at Loos were about twice as high as German losses.

 

Barry Jenkins