Rowland Edwin BIRDSALL

46504, Private. b. 1888, Knottingley d. Sat. 16th June 1917 (aged 29).

Another of the conscripts to be called up in 1916, Rowland had left his wife at their home of 19, Highgate Road and enlisted into the Northumberland Fusiliers in Halifax. After training he was sent quickly to France to reinforce the 13th battalion who had suffered substantial losses during the murderous summer of 1916. It was unfortunate that as the next offensive campaign was coming to a close in the early summer of 1917, the Battle of Arras, Rowland was killed in action and lost somewhere on the battlefield. He is remembered on the Arras Memorial for the missing.