55279 Private Griffith Edwards of the 13th Battalion, Royal Welsh Fusiliers, formerly 4027:

 

He died of wounds at Elverdinge, 6.4 km north-west of Ypres, Belgium, on the 22 June 1917, aged 24 years, and he is buried in Ferme-Olivier Cemetery, West-Vlaanderen, Belgium, Plot 3, Row E, Grave 15. His death occurred just before the start of the Third Battle of Ypres (Battle of Passchendaele) on the 31 July 1917.

 

Griffith Edwards was born at Blaenau Ffestiniog, Merionethshire (Gwynedd), North Wales, in 1893 to Richard Edwards and Elizabeth Alice Lewis who were married at Blaenau Ffestiniog in 1882. In 1911 he was resident with his parents and siblings, Catherine Jane (27), Hugh (26), Lizzie (23) and Margaret Anne ‘Maggie’ (11) on Cambrian Terrace, Tanygrisiau, Blaenau Ffestiniog.

 

Reproduced below is a copy of a letter sent by the Reverend Lawrence Scott of the Wilton Street Unitarian Chapel, Denton, Lancashire, to Miss Margaret Anne ‘Maggie’ Edwards offering condolences on the loss of her brother in the war. Maggie Edwards came to Denton as a companion to Lawrence Scott’s wife (Mary Banks) and she married Fred Kenworthy and ran their grocer’s shop on Wilton Street, Denton. The Scott family had a holiday home at Criccieth.

 

Mona Terrace

Criccieth

28 June 1917

My dear Maggie

 

We are grieved indeed to hear of your great loss. Mrs Scott sends you her love & wishes she could write to you herself - that unfortunately she cannot do – but we both feel for you all deeply. It is sad to think how many brave & noble souls have been lost to the world. We can only think of them, in their place of nearer vision, as wishing us to keep their memory, by living our best & if we do so we shall not fail. And for your brother, in the midst of your affection your love will ever keep his memory green. He died for something even greater than his country, for out of this war & after it, something better & greater will arise for Europe – if the leading peoples of Europe can but feel their common brotherhood. May the larger, the better time come. For that time your brother & several brave souls I have known, have died – amongst the numbers we have not known – we who are left must remember them by working for it in living our best. Please accept, for yourself & your parents & family, the truest sympathy in your sorrow from Mrs Scott & myself.

 

Ever sincerely yours

Lawrence Scott.

 

Reverend Lawrence Scott is the brother of Charles Prestwich Scott who was the editor and proprietor of the Manchester Guardian newspaper.

Peter Whitehead