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In St John the Baptist Church, Tunstall, Lancashire. Tunstall is way up in the north-east of the county, less than 3 miles from Westmorland.




(Dodgy camera, so a dodgy photo. I really need to get a new camera.)
The casualty lists issued on Friday night last record the death from enteric fever, at Kroonstad on Tuesday, of Capt. Louis Aylmer North, of the Manchester Regiment.

Captain North was one of six brothers, all of whom are or have been soldiers of the King. Their father, Mr. North North, of Newton Hall, Kirkby Lonsdale, and Thurland Castle, Lancashire, has himself been a soldier, and married the daughter of an officer who fought at Waterloo. The eldest son is Colonel Burridge North, a distinguished officer, who is commanding the 3rd Royal Lancaster (Militia) in South Africa.

Louis Aylmer was the second son. He was born in 1866, and took a commission in the Royal Lancaster Militia when 18 years of age. Three years later he transferred to the Royal Scots Fusiliers, and with them he served in the Tirah campaign. In the taking of a fort on August 27th, 1897, he was shot through the body, and for a time he lay in a serious condition. He was still suffering from the effects of his wound when the present war broke out, but in January last he was sufficiently recovered to take a commission in the Manchester Regiment, and he joined the battalion at the front.

The next younger brother, Capt. E. B. North, of the Royal Fusiliers, served through the Natal campaign with General Buller, and afterwards in the Transvaal, and has since acted as aide-de-camp to General Thynne at York. The fourth, Captain Piers North, served through the Soudan campaign, and went to the front with the Royal Berkshires at the outbreak of the present war, a fortnight after his marriage to a niece of the Marquess of Zetland. The fifth son, Oliver Henry, was intended for the Church, but went to Ceylon as a tea planter. He joined the Ceylon Mounted Infantry, but was attracted to the Regular Army when the war broke out, and is now at the front, with the mounted infantry of the Lancashire Fusiliers. The youngest, Albert Kennis, was until recently an officer of the Army Service Corps.

The Lancaster Guardian, Saturday 14th December 1901

Really very tragic indeed, a very brave man, gazetted into the 4th Battalion, only to loose his life at Kroonstad less than a year later.

Through the forum's name search facility I found this:- "At the time of his death he was in command of the 3rd Shorncliffe Mounted Infantry Company, and a tablet was erected in Shorncliffe Garrison Church to his memory and that of the men of the company who lost their lives during the war."

I had a look online for Shorncliffe Garrison, Folkestone, but the church closed, along with the garrison, is now used by a theatre company, and all the interior fittings went elsewhere. Can anyone suggest where the 3rd Shorncliffe Mounted Infantry Company memorial tablet might be now? A regimental museum maybe?

I found this pic of his grave.





Adrian

Really tragic Adrian, a waste of a brave officer.

Hello Berenice

The Register entry for Cpt North shows the MI memorial to be in (or was in 1996) St Mark's Church, Sir John Moore Barracks, Shorncliffe - picture attached. The memorial was in the garrison church which was destroyed by a storm in the 1930s.

Happy New Year!

BereniceUK wrote: Through the forum's name search facility I found this:- "At the time of his death he was in command of the 3rd Shorncliffe Mounted Infantry Company, and a tablet was erected in Shorncliffe Garrison Church to his memory and that of the men of the company who lost their lives during the war."

I had a look online for Shorncliffe Garrison, Folkestone, but the church closed, along with the garrison, is now used by a theatre company, and all the interior fittings went elsewhere. Can anyone suggest where the 3rd Shorncliffe Mounted Infantry Company memorial tablet might be now? A regimental museum maybe?