Lot WOODCOCK

60445, Private. b. 1893, Dodworth, Barnsley d. Sat. 13th April 1918 (aged 24).

After marrying a local girl, Maud, Lot settled in Clayton leaving his Barnsley upbringing with his parents George and Mary Woodcock behind him. The couple lived at 8, Vignola Terrace, Clayton until he was conscripted in early 1917 into the 22nd Northumberland Fusiliers, otherwise known as one of the ‘Tyneside Scottish’ Pals battalion raised in Newcastle at the start of the war. Initially, he had joined the Duke of Wellington’s in Halifax but this was only for a matter of weeks before his transfer to the Fusiliers.

Lot was a replacement for some of the heavy casualties the Pals battalions had suffered, and when he met this group of men, would have been faced with comrades coming from totally opposite ends of the country, instead of one single point of origin, like the Pals at their inception.

Lot was injured in the German Spring Offensive and moved back to the main British base at Etaples where there were hospital facilities adequate enough to cope comfortably with over 20,000 casualties at a time. It was here that he passed away; he was buried in the local cemetery, Etaples Military Cemetery, which now contains the graves of over 10,800 British casualties from throughout the Great War – fellow Claytonian Joseph Foster lies not far away.

The CWGC states he died of wounds (gas).