 |
SKELTON - IN - CLEVELAND
IN HISTORY
|
 |
"WE WILL REMEMBER THEM"
39264 Lance Corporal PETER GOSLING.
9th Battalion, Yorkshire Regiment.
[Probably also 1461 Pte P Gosling, 4th Battalion, Yorkshire Regiment. See below.]
Killed in action, aged 24, on the 20th September 1917.
Born at West Hartlepool. Enlisted at Saltburn by Sea.
Son of Mary and the late Edward Gosling of North Skelton, N Yorkshire
|
Tyne Cot Memorial, Zonnebeke, Belgium
|
FAMILY:-
1901, Peter, aged 7, was living at 25 Richard St, North Skelton. He had been born at West Hartlepool, Co Durham.
His father, Edward, aged 51, was an Ironstone Miner below ground. He had been born in Long Sutton, Yorks.
His mother, Mary, age 49, had been born in Sleights, N Yorks.
He had two older brothers John 17, who was a horse driver in the mines and Herbert 15.
|
 |
1911. Peter, aged 19, and his mother Mary, who is now a Widow, are listed as Visitors at the home of R Matson, 27 Princes St, Bishop Auckland.
Peter's occupation is Assistant Onsetter, Ironstone Mine, so presumably he was still living and working in Skelton.
WAR SITUATION:-
The 9th (Service) Battalion, Yorkshire Regiment was Formed at Richmond, 22 September 1914.
It was attached to 69th Brigade, 23rd Division.
Prior to 1917 it had been involved in the Battles of the Somme in France.
Peter was killed in the Third Battle of Ypres.
An offensive was mounted by Commonwealth forces to divert German attention from a weakened French front further south.
The initial attempt in June to dislodge the Germans from the Messines Ridge was a complete success.
The Infantry attacked on the 31st July after a 2 week Artillery bombardment, which gave the Germans warning and destroyed the drainage of what was to start with a swampy plain.
One of the wettest Summers on record then turned the battleground into pits of mud in which men and horses drowned.
The campaign finally came to a close in November with the capture of Passchendaele.
The 5 mile advance over 3 months had cost 325,000 Allied casualties and a quarter of a million Germans.
|
MEMORIAL
Peter Gosling has no known grave and is commemorated on the Tyne Cot Memorial, which bears the names of 35,000 men.
All around the graves of the largest Commonwealth cemetery in the World.
|
 |
PRIOR SERVICE WITH THE 4TH BATTALION,
YORKSHIRE REGIMENT.
One of Peter Gosling's descendants, Sue Band, has pointed out the following:-
Records show that 1641 Private Peter Gosling served with the 4th Battalion of the Yorkshire Regiment.
He was with that Battalion when they were first sent out to France on the 18th April 1915, as his Medal Card here shows and he must therefore have experienced the hard fighting and great losses at Ypres of that year.
His Medal Card and other official entries show that he was "Discharged" from the service on the 6th March 1916.
This would normally have been as a result of wounds or gassing and after a period of Hospital treatment in the UK with the final medical assessment that he was unfit for any kind of future Army Service.
It has been suggested that being an Ironstone Miner, he could have been released for this kind of work, but this was usually termed being "disembodied" from the Army, rather than "discharged".
|
All the lads who went to France with the 4th Yorks in 1915 were local Territorials.
Both Sue and old Skeltoner, Owen Rooks, who has kindly done most of my family research, both confirm that the 1901 and 1911 censuses show that there was only one Peter Gosling in the North Riding of Yorks at the time of the
First War.
So it seems that 1641 Pte Gosling and 39264 L/Cpl Gosling was the same person.
However, he must have re-enlisted and been posted to the 9th Battalion in the months following discharge in order to have a 5 digit 9th Battalion number, as on 1st March 1917 the Territorial Force Infantry was issued
with the 6 digit numbers that continue to this day.
So the reason for discharge remains a mystery.
|
|