Charley Edward Jones
Photo - Chris Woods 2017
Photo - Chris Woods 2017
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Introduction
Charles Edward Jones (Charley) was born in Elson, Ellesmere on 17th February 1885. His parents Edward and Elizabeth moved to Treflach Hall Farm where he was raised along with his brother John Thomas and his sister Jane Elizabeth (Ginney) After his schooling he was employed at the grocers G & W perks in Bailey Street Oswestry. He was well regarded in the area by colleagues and friends and was like his family a regular member of the Carneddau Chapel in Trefonen and the Christian Endevour Society in Oswestry. 
Photo from the Border Counties Advertizer
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Photo - Chris Woods 2017
He moved to Wimbledon, London to further his career in the grocery trade and after a short period there moved on to Belfast. Shortly after the outbreak of war, on the 14th September 1914 he enlisted as a member of the Young Citizen's Volunteers in Belfast.
His brother John Thomas Jones is also represented on this website as sadly he too was to go to war and not return. It is recorded in local history that the loss of the brothers had a huge impact on both the local community and their family. The brothers sister was known locally as Jinny the Pit and an extract from Bernard Martins Jottings (a local man's account of village life in the 30s and 40's) shown here highlights this.
"Lower down but on the left hand side was Ivy House, a smallholding own by the Jones family from Treflach Hall; they had tragically lost their two sons in the 1st World War, but had returned to the holding together with their daughter Jinny. Ivy House had originally been connected to the Trefonen Colliery, we knew it as Pit House; the daughter was always known as ‘Jinny the Pitt.’ I think she had been mentally affected by the tragedy that had befallen her brothers and was eccentric to say the least. Her mental decline was so sad: wearing odd shoes, coming into the village wearing an apron, not wearing a skirt, for before my time she had played the organ in chapel. The Jones family were extremely generous to the Congregational Chapel, for they gave the ground on which the Manse was built, also at Miss J Jones’ death, the farm holding was sold and the proceeds given to the chapel.
It is also thought that the Jones Family sold Treflach Hall Farm in 1918 as they no longer felt they could live in the home where they had raised their family.
His brother John Thomas Jones is also represented on this website as sadly he too was to go to war and not return. It is recorded in local history that the loss of the brothers had a huge impact on both the local community and their family. The brothers sister was known locally as Jinny the Pit and an extract from Bernard Martins Jottings (a local man's account of village life in the 30s and 40's) shown here highlights this.
"Lower down but on the left hand side was Ivy House, a smallholding own by the Jones family from Treflach Hall; they had tragically lost their two sons in the 1st World War, but had returned to the holding together with their daughter Jinny. Ivy House had originally been connected to the Trefonen Colliery, we knew it as Pit House; the daughter was always known as ‘Jinny the Pitt.’ I think she had been mentally affected by the tragedy that had befallen her brothers and was eccentric to say the least. Her mental decline was so sad: wearing odd shoes, coming into the village wearing an apron, not wearing a skirt, for before my time she had played the organ in chapel. The Jones family were extremely generous to the Congregational Chapel, for they gave the ground on which the Manse was built, also at Miss J Jones’ death, the farm holding was sold and the proceeds given to the chapel.
It is also thought that the Jones Family sold Treflach Hall Farm in 1918 as they no longer felt they could live in the home where they had raised their family.
Young Citizens Volunteers Badge
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Military Record including Regimental and Battalion Information
Corporal Charley Edward Jones enlisted as a member of the Young Citizen's Volunteers and was assigned to the 14th Battalion Royal Irish Rifles. The Young Citizen Volunteers (YCV) was formed in 1912 and joined with the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) in 1914 to become its Belfast battalion. Following the conversion of the UVF into the Ulster Division the YCV became the 14th Battalion of the Royal Irish Rifles. Known as the "Chocolate Box Soldiers" because of their immaculate turn out they were recruited largely from Belfast's middle class. |
Royal Irish Rifles parading through Belfast 1915
Medal Roll Index Card
The 14th Battalion Royal Irish Fusiliers were part of the 36th Ulster Division whose sacrifices are well documented. Charley's Battalion having arrived in France in October 1915 were soon to be involved of some of the bloodiest fighting on the Western Front but the following extract taken from their war diary on Xmas Day 1915 tells of better times. Times of Christmas Dinner, concerts and football.
Things were to prove a lot harder as time went on and the following extract is from the website on the 36th Ulster Division and their time leading up to the Battle of the Somme.
"In October 1915 after several months of preparation in England, men of the 36th Ulster Division sailed across the Channel and began to disembark in France. The soldiers, drawn from all parts of the nine counties of Ulster, had previously trained at Finner Camp in Donegal, Ballykinlar in County Down, and the Clandeboye Estate near Bangor. All were volunteers with an overwhelming majority of them in their late teens and early twenties and, while many perhaps sought adventure and a chance to see some of the world beyond the confines of their own home towns and villages, they believed absolutely that their cause in going to war to free France and Belgium from German oppression and invasion was just and honourable.
During the next winter and spring they learnt their combat and trench skills in the quieter regions of the Western Front before moving, in June, 1916, to take over their allotted areas on either side of the River Ancre and west of the village of Thiepval in preparation for the forthcoming Battle of the Somme.
In November 1915 the Ulster Division initially concentrated in the area around Flesselles, some ten miles north of Arras. Gradually, men were sent in groups for familiarisation with trench warfare conditions, and were attached to the regular army 4th Division for the purpose in the (at this time) quiet are north of the River Ancre near Albert.
Later the Division was moved away from the fighting area, towards Abbeville, where it spent most of the winter of 1915-16 continuing training. One of the Brigades was attached to 4th Division for several weeks at this time, and the artillery finally joined in late November.
The whole Division finally took over a complete section of the front line on 7 February 1916, between the River Ancre and the Mailly-Maillet to Serre road. Division HQ was at Acheux. The next six weeks were quiet enough, but punctuated by mine explosions, sniping, many patrols and similar small-scale incidents.
In March 1916 the sector of the front held by the Ulster Division was extended to cover an area south of the river called Thiepval Wood. This wood, the name of which would become indelibly linked to the province of Ulster, served as a base until the commencement of the Battle of the Somme on 1st July 1916.
Thiepval comprised an area of some 100 acres of deciduous forest and was criss-crossed with deep communication trenches leading to the front line. Dugouts were excavated from the chalky earth and provided some shelter from the German artillery. Food stores and ammunition dumps were also constructed in the wood. It was near one of these dumps, on the morning of the 1st July, that Rifleman William McFadzean, 14th Rifles (Young Citizen Volunteers) won immortal fame when was awarded a posthumous Victoria Cross for an act of courageous self-sacrifice.
Thiepval Wood housed the four battalions of the 109th Brigade. The River Ancre divided 108th Brigade, with two battalions in the wood and two in the village of Hamel. Divisional Headquarters was at Aveluy Wood, which also housed the 107th Brigade.
1st July 1916 - As the morning mists cleared away on the 1st July, the assault waves of 130,000 British Infantry called their rolls and checked their arms and ammunition. Each man was in "fighting order" and with the extra burden of shovels, grenades, a Stoke’s mortar bomb, wire cutters a gas mask, a prepared charge of explosives for cutting gaps in wire, and other obstacles, many of them were carrying 90lbs.
At 7.30am, zero hour, the artillery barrage lifted off the first German line and moved onto the second. This was the first employment of the so-called rolling barrage. Steel-helmeted and with bayonets fixed, the infantry left their trenches and advanced. As a senior officer wrote to the Times Newspaper of the Ulster Division: "It was done as if it was a parade movement on the barrack square" They were closely packed in rigid lines, the military doctrine of the day being that they should swarm onto the enemy trenches as soon as their own artillery had lifted. But this stiff formation prevented the use of cover and inhibited initiative.
At first, south of the Ancre, everything went well and 108 and 109 Brigades moved over the German trenches with few casualties. Scarcely were they across, however, when the German batteries opened a barrage on "No Mans Land". Simultaneously the skilful and resolute German machine-gunners, who had remained safe from our bombardment, now sprang up from their shelters, pulling up their guns and heavy ammunition boxes, and raked our men from the flanks and the rear, thinning the khaki waves. Many officers fell and the men went on alone.
The Ulster Divisions position was now a vulnerable salient in the German line. A few hundred yards wide and raked by German fire. At dusk a powerful counter-attack by fresh German troops drove our men, almost weaponless, back to the second German line, which they held all the next day until relieved at night by the troops of the 49th Division.
They withdrew with their prisoners tattered and exhausted. They had suffered horrendous casualties. The Innsikillings lost more men than any British regiment had ever lost in a single day. Of the 15th Royal Irish Rifles, only seventy men answered roll call that night of the 1st of July. The total British casualties on that first day were 60,000.
Through no fault of their own, the blinding success that the Ulstermen had achieved had not been exploited. But the Battle of the Somme had inflicted on the Germans, a wound from which they never fully recovered. An historic eyewitness account of the battle stated "I am not an Ulsterman, but yesterday, the 1st July, as I followed their amazing attack I felt I would rather be an Ulsterman than anything else in the world."
Truly we may say of those who fell as said Pericles over the warrior dead in Athens, "So they gave their bodies to the Commonwealth and received, each with his own memory, praise that will never die, and with it the greatest of all sepulchres, not that in which their mortal bones are laid, but a home in the minds of men, where their glory remains fresh to stir to speech or to actions as the occasion comes by."
In two days of fighting, the Ulster Division had lost 5500 officers and men - killed, wounded and missing. The first day of the battle had been the original anniversary of the Battle of the Boyne and as they went over the parapet, many shouted the old battle cries "NO SURRENDER" and "REMEMBER 1690". Many wore orange ribbons and one sergeant of the Inniskilling had on his orange sash. The Belfast newspapers, as elsewhere on 3rd July, reported the Somme Offensive, and spoke of brilliant successes. It was several days before the true horror of the casualties was known, and as day by day the lists in the newspapers grew longer, the whole Province went into mourning. No division was more closely-knit because its core had been the Ulster Volunteer Force and besides, the Ulster community was small and compact. In the streets of Belfast, as in other towns and villages throughout Ulster, mothers looked out in dread for the red bicycles of the telegram boys. In house after house, the blinds were drawn until it seemed that every family in the city had been bereaved. The casualty lists were full of familiar names, and always after them in brackets appeared the Ulster Volunteer Force units to which the casualty belonged. That year the Lord Mayor requested the suspension of business for five minutes at noon. In a downpour of rain, traffic stopped, and passers by stood silent in the streets - the Ulster Volunteers had sealed their covenant in blood"
"In October 1915 after several months of preparation in England, men of the 36th Ulster Division sailed across the Channel and began to disembark in France. The soldiers, drawn from all parts of the nine counties of Ulster, had previously trained at Finner Camp in Donegal, Ballykinlar in County Down, and the Clandeboye Estate near Bangor. All were volunteers with an overwhelming majority of them in their late teens and early twenties and, while many perhaps sought adventure and a chance to see some of the world beyond the confines of their own home towns and villages, they believed absolutely that their cause in going to war to free France and Belgium from German oppression and invasion was just and honourable.
During the next winter and spring they learnt their combat and trench skills in the quieter regions of the Western Front before moving, in June, 1916, to take over their allotted areas on either side of the River Ancre and west of the village of Thiepval in preparation for the forthcoming Battle of the Somme.
In November 1915 the Ulster Division initially concentrated in the area around Flesselles, some ten miles north of Arras. Gradually, men were sent in groups for familiarisation with trench warfare conditions, and were attached to the regular army 4th Division for the purpose in the (at this time) quiet are north of the River Ancre near Albert.
Later the Division was moved away from the fighting area, towards Abbeville, where it spent most of the winter of 1915-16 continuing training. One of the Brigades was attached to 4th Division for several weeks at this time, and the artillery finally joined in late November.
The whole Division finally took over a complete section of the front line on 7 February 1916, between the River Ancre and the Mailly-Maillet to Serre road. Division HQ was at Acheux. The next six weeks were quiet enough, but punctuated by mine explosions, sniping, many patrols and similar small-scale incidents.
In March 1916 the sector of the front held by the Ulster Division was extended to cover an area south of the river called Thiepval Wood. This wood, the name of which would become indelibly linked to the province of Ulster, served as a base until the commencement of the Battle of the Somme on 1st July 1916.
Thiepval comprised an area of some 100 acres of deciduous forest and was criss-crossed with deep communication trenches leading to the front line. Dugouts were excavated from the chalky earth and provided some shelter from the German artillery. Food stores and ammunition dumps were also constructed in the wood. It was near one of these dumps, on the morning of the 1st July, that Rifleman William McFadzean, 14th Rifles (Young Citizen Volunteers) won immortal fame when was awarded a posthumous Victoria Cross for an act of courageous self-sacrifice.
Thiepval Wood housed the four battalions of the 109th Brigade. The River Ancre divided 108th Brigade, with two battalions in the wood and two in the village of Hamel. Divisional Headquarters was at Aveluy Wood, which also housed the 107th Brigade.
1st July 1916 - As the morning mists cleared away on the 1st July, the assault waves of 130,000 British Infantry called their rolls and checked their arms and ammunition. Each man was in "fighting order" and with the extra burden of shovels, grenades, a Stoke’s mortar bomb, wire cutters a gas mask, a prepared charge of explosives for cutting gaps in wire, and other obstacles, many of them were carrying 90lbs.
At 7.30am, zero hour, the artillery barrage lifted off the first German line and moved onto the second. This was the first employment of the so-called rolling barrage. Steel-helmeted and with bayonets fixed, the infantry left their trenches and advanced. As a senior officer wrote to the Times Newspaper of the Ulster Division: "It was done as if it was a parade movement on the barrack square" They were closely packed in rigid lines, the military doctrine of the day being that they should swarm onto the enemy trenches as soon as their own artillery had lifted. But this stiff formation prevented the use of cover and inhibited initiative.
At first, south of the Ancre, everything went well and 108 and 109 Brigades moved over the German trenches with few casualties. Scarcely were they across, however, when the German batteries opened a barrage on "No Mans Land". Simultaneously the skilful and resolute German machine-gunners, who had remained safe from our bombardment, now sprang up from their shelters, pulling up their guns and heavy ammunition boxes, and raked our men from the flanks and the rear, thinning the khaki waves. Many officers fell and the men went on alone.
The Ulster Divisions position was now a vulnerable salient in the German line. A few hundred yards wide and raked by German fire. At dusk a powerful counter-attack by fresh German troops drove our men, almost weaponless, back to the second German line, which they held all the next day until relieved at night by the troops of the 49th Division.
They withdrew with their prisoners tattered and exhausted. They had suffered horrendous casualties. The Innsikillings lost more men than any British regiment had ever lost in a single day. Of the 15th Royal Irish Rifles, only seventy men answered roll call that night of the 1st of July. The total British casualties on that first day were 60,000.
Through no fault of their own, the blinding success that the Ulstermen had achieved had not been exploited. But the Battle of the Somme had inflicted on the Germans, a wound from which they never fully recovered. An historic eyewitness account of the battle stated "I am not an Ulsterman, but yesterday, the 1st July, as I followed their amazing attack I felt I would rather be an Ulsterman than anything else in the world."
Truly we may say of those who fell as said Pericles over the warrior dead in Athens, "So they gave their bodies to the Commonwealth and received, each with his own memory, praise that will never die, and with it the greatest of all sepulchres, not that in which their mortal bones are laid, but a home in the minds of men, where their glory remains fresh to stir to speech or to actions as the occasion comes by."
In two days of fighting, the Ulster Division had lost 5500 officers and men - killed, wounded and missing. The first day of the battle had been the original anniversary of the Battle of the Boyne and as they went over the parapet, many shouted the old battle cries "NO SURRENDER" and "REMEMBER 1690". Many wore orange ribbons and one sergeant of the Inniskilling had on his orange sash. The Belfast newspapers, as elsewhere on 3rd July, reported the Somme Offensive, and spoke of brilliant successes. It was several days before the true horror of the casualties was known, and as day by day the lists in the newspapers grew longer, the whole Province went into mourning. No division was more closely-knit because its core had been the Ulster Volunteer Force and besides, the Ulster community was small and compact. In the streets of Belfast, as in other towns and villages throughout Ulster, mothers looked out in dread for the red bicycles of the telegram boys. In house after house, the blinds were drawn until it seemed that every family in the city had been bereaved. The casualty lists were full of familiar names, and always after them in brackets appeared the Ulster Volunteer Force units to which the casualty belonged. That year the Lord Mayor requested the suspension of business for five minutes at noon. In a downpour of rain, traffic stopped, and passers by stood silent in the streets - the Ulster Volunteers had sealed their covenant in blood"
The Ulster Memorial Tower (below) is a Somme battlefield memorial to the men of the 36th (Ulster) Division. It commemorates the heavy losses suffered by 36th Division on 1st July 1916, the first day of the Battle of the Somme. It is a replica of Helen's Tower which was located in the centre of the training camp on the Estate at Clandeboye, County Down where the volunteer Ulstermen of the 36th Division began their training following the formation of this new division from late August 1914.
Helen's Tower Photo by Chris Woods 4/9/2015
Corporal Charley Edward Jones had been lucky to survive the Battle of the Somme but his Division was not to be speared further bloodshed and on the 20th June 1917 after the attack on the Ridge at Messines described below he was to lose his life.
After the Somme the division was withdrawn from the front and moved to the area around St. Omer where it regrouped, received large numbers of fresh soldiers to replace those killed or wounded, and made ready for its next engagement - the Battle of Messines.
The small town of Messines lies at the southern end of a low, rounded ridge, which stretches eight kilometres northwards towards Ypres. The ridge overlooks the flat Flanders Plain and, in 1917 in the hands of the Germans, it dominated the southern sector of the Ypres Salient held by the British. Its capture was vital if the commander-in-chief's (Field Marshal Haig) strategic attack eastwards out of the Salient was to succeed.
The 36th Division joined the Second Army under General Plumer - a senior officer old-fashioned in appearance but with the deserved reputation both for meticulous battle preparation, and, in what had become a war of attrition, a keen regard for the saving of the lives of the men under his command. On a frontage of about 1,200 yards the Ulstermen took position south-west of the heavily fortified village of Wytschaete and, with the 16th Irish Division on its left, prepared for the day of attack - 7th June. At 3.10 a.m., with a roar clearly heard in London, nineteen monstrous British mines containing a total of 600 tons of high explosives were detonated under the defenders on the ridge.
Beneath an intense artillery barrage the men of Second Army attacked the dazed and demoralised Germans and, by mid- afternoon, the entire ridge was in British hands. Wytschaete had held out for some time but after a fierce struggle it was captured by the combined efforts of the Irish and Ulster Divisions.
After its success at Messines the 36th was withdrawn for rest and to prepare for its next battle.
After the Somme the division was withdrawn from the front and moved to the area around St. Omer where it regrouped, received large numbers of fresh soldiers to replace those killed or wounded, and made ready for its next engagement - the Battle of Messines.
The small town of Messines lies at the southern end of a low, rounded ridge, which stretches eight kilometres northwards towards Ypres. The ridge overlooks the flat Flanders Plain and, in 1917 in the hands of the Germans, it dominated the southern sector of the Ypres Salient held by the British. Its capture was vital if the commander-in-chief's (Field Marshal Haig) strategic attack eastwards out of the Salient was to succeed.
The 36th Division joined the Second Army under General Plumer - a senior officer old-fashioned in appearance but with the deserved reputation both for meticulous battle preparation, and, in what had become a war of attrition, a keen regard for the saving of the lives of the men under his command. On a frontage of about 1,200 yards the Ulstermen took position south-west of the heavily fortified village of Wytschaete and, with the 16th Irish Division on its left, prepared for the day of attack - 7th June. At 3.10 a.m., with a roar clearly heard in London, nineteen monstrous British mines containing a total of 600 tons of high explosives were detonated under the defenders on the ridge.
Beneath an intense artillery barrage the men of Second Army attacked the dazed and demoralised Germans and, by mid- afternoon, the entire ridge was in British hands. Wytschaete had held out for some time but after a fierce struggle it was captured by the combined efforts of the Irish and Ulster Divisions.
After its success at Messines the 36th was withdrawn for rest and to prepare for its next battle.
1891 Census - Ellesmere
Census data
1911 Census - Wimbledon, Surrey
 Border Counties Advertizer 4-7-17
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Memorial and War Grave Information
Corporal Charley Edward Jones 17988 Royal Irish Rifles is buried in Messines Ridge British Cemetery "HE NOBLY ANSWERED HIS COUNTRY'S CALL AND GAVE HIS LIFE FOR FREEDOM" are the words on gravestone. The newspaper article opposite recording his death is from the Border Counties Advertizer dated 4th July 1917. He is also remembered on the Trefonen War Memorial and on a marble tablet that was originally inside the Carneddau Chapel, Trefonen but is now on the adjoining wall of the graveyard just outside the Chapel. It was moved to its new resting place when the Chapel ceased as a place of worship and became a private house in the 1990's. |
The brothers deaths and the unveiling of the marble tablet were also recorded in the local Chapel magazine as shown underneath. It is interesting to note that Charles is recorded as being in the 4th Battalion Royal Welsh Fusiliers? The reason for this is unknown as he served his entire war duty as a member of the 14th Battalion Royal Irish Rifles as recorded earlier.
MESSINES RIDGE BRITISH CEMETERY
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Historical Information
Messines (now Mesen) was considered a strong strategic position, not only from its height above the plain below, but from the extensive system of cellars under the convent known as the 'Institution Royale.' The village was taken from the 1st Cavalry Division by the German 26th Division on 31 October-1 November 1914. An attack by French troops on 6 -7 November was unsuccessful and it was not until the Battle of Messines on 7 June 1917 that it was retaken by the New Zealand Division. On 10-11 April 1918, the village fell into German hands once more after a stubborn defence by the South African Brigade, but was retaken for the last time on 28-29 September 1918. |
MESSINES RIDGE BRITISH CEMETERY, which stands on ground that belonged to the 'Institution Royale' (the Cross of Sacrifice is on the site of the Institution's windmill), was made after the Armistice when graves were brought in from the battlefield around Messines and from the following small burial grounds:-
BELL FARM CEMETERY, WYTSCHAETE, near the South side of the Messines-Kemmel road, where 32 soldiers of the 25th Division were buried in June, 1917.
BLAUWEPOORTBEEK CEMETERY, WYTSCHAETE, 1.6 kms North-East of Messines, where 16 Australian and seven United Kingdom soldiers were buried in August-October, 1917.
BOUSBECQUES EAST GERMAN CEMETERY, on the South side of the village, where four soldiers from the United Kingdom were buried by a German Field Hospital in November, 1914.
BRISTOL CASTLE MILITARY CEMETERY, MESSINES, on the Wulverghem road near Wulverghem, where 32 United Kingdom soldiers of the 36th (Ulster) and 14th (Light) Divisions were buried in September and October, 1918.
LUMM FARM CEMETERY, WYTSCHAETE, a little East of the Messines road, where 13 United Kingdom and two Australian soldiers were buried in June-September, 1917.
MIDDLE FARM CEMETERY, WYTSCHAETE, near the Messines road 500 metres North of Messines, where 16 Australian, 14 United Kingdom and four New Zealand soldiers were buried in July-December, 1917.
ONRAET FARM CEMETERY, WYTSCHAETE, between Wytschaete and St. Eloi, in which 29 soldiers of the 36th Division were buried in June-August, 1917.
QUEENSLAND CEMETERY, WARNETON, on the lower road from Messines to Warneton, where 30 Australian soldiers (of whom 23 belonged to the 41st Battalion) and three from the United Kingdom were buried in June and July, 1917.
RIVER DOUVE CEMETERY, MESSINES (also called Snitchel Farm) on the river bank South of Messines, containing the graves of 24 Australian and four United Kingdom soldiers who fell in June-November, 1917.
The dates of death of those buried here range from October 1914 to October 1918, but the majority died in the fighting of 1917.
There are now 1,534 Commonwealth servicemen of the First World War buried or commemorated in the cemetery. 957 of the burials are unidentified, but special memorials commemorate a number of casualties known or believed to be buried among them, or who were buried in other cemeteries where their graves were destroyed by shell fire.
Within the cemetery stands the MESSINES RIDGE (NEW ZEALAND) MEMORIAL which commemorates over 800 soldiers of the New Zealand Expeditionary Force who died in or near Messines in 1917 and 1918 and who have no known grave.
This is one of seven memorials in France and Belgium to those New Zealand soldiers who died on the Western Front and whose graves are not known. The memorials are all in cemeteries chosen as appropriate to the fighting in which the men died.
Both cemetery and memorial were designed by Charles Holden.
click on the link below for more information
www.cwgc.org/find-a-cemetery/cemetery/55400/MESSINES%20RIDGE%20BRITISH%20CEMETERY
BELL FARM CEMETERY, WYTSCHAETE, near the South side of the Messines-Kemmel road, where 32 soldiers of the 25th Division were buried in June, 1917.
BLAUWEPOORTBEEK CEMETERY, WYTSCHAETE, 1.6 kms North-East of Messines, where 16 Australian and seven United Kingdom soldiers were buried in August-October, 1917.
BOUSBECQUES EAST GERMAN CEMETERY, on the South side of the village, where four soldiers from the United Kingdom were buried by a German Field Hospital in November, 1914.
BRISTOL CASTLE MILITARY CEMETERY, MESSINES, on the Wulverghem road near Wulverghem, where 32 United Kingdom soldiers of the 36th (Ulster) and 14th (Light) Divisions were buried in September and October, 1918.
LUMM FARM CEMETERY, WYTSCHAETE, a little East of the Messines road, where 13 United Kingdom and two Australian soldiers were buried in June-September, 1917.
MIDDLE FARM CEMETERY, WYTSCHAETE, near the Messines road 500 metres North of Messines, where 16 Australian, 14 United Kingdom and four New Zealand soldiers were buried in July-December, 1917.
ONRAET FARM CEMETERY, WYTSCHAETE, between Wytschaete and St. Eloi, in which 29 soldiers of the 36th Division were buried in June-August, 1917.
QUEENSLAND CEMETERY, WARNETON, on the lower road from Messines to Warneton, where 30 Australian soldiers (of whom 23 belonged to the 41st Battalion) and three from the United Kingdom were buried in June and July, 1917.
RIVER DOUVE CEMETERY, MESSINES (also called Snitchel Farm) on the river bank South of Messines, containing the graves of 24 Australian and four United Kingdom soldiers who fell in June-November, 1917.
The dates of death of those buried here range from October 1914 to October 1918, but the majority died in the fighting of 1917.
There are now 1,534 Commonwealth servicemen of the First World War buried or commemorated in the cemetery. 957 of the burials are unidentified, but special memorials commemorate a number of casualties known or believed to be buried among them, or who were buried in other cemeteries where their graves were destroyed by shell fire.
Within the cemetery stands the MESSINES RIDGE (NEW ZEALAND) MEMORIAL which commemorates over 800 soldiers of the New Zealand Expeditionary Force who died in or near Messines in 1917 and 1918 and who have no known grave.
This is one of seven memorials in France and Belgium to those New Zealand soldiers who died on the Western Front and whose graves are not known. The memorials are all in cemeteries chosen as appropriate to the fighting in which the men died.
Both cemetery and memorial were designed by Charles Holden.
click on the link below for more information
www.cwgc.org/find-a-cemetery/cemetery/55400/MESSINES%20RIDGE%20BRITISH%20CEMETERY