Pte 406080 Walter Jackson

• Age: 19
• From: Eccles, Lancs
• Regiment: The King's (Liverpool Regiment) 18th Btn
• K.I.A Tuesday 22nd October 1918
• Commemorated at: Honnechy Brit Cem
  Panel Ref: II.A.2

Walter Jackson was born in 1899 in Eccles, Manchester and was the son of George and Rose Jackson.

The 1901 Census shows the family are living at 49 Vicarage Grove, Eccles.

His father George is shown as a stonebreaker born in Eccles in 1869 whilst his mother Rose was born in Salford in 1871. Walter is shown as  2 years of age born in 1899 and his siblings, all born in Eccles, are listed as follows; George born 1891, John born 1892, Elizabeth A. born 1894 and Frederick born in 1901. 

He enlisted in Bury and was serving with the 18^th Battalion, The King’s Liverpool Regiment as Private No 406080 attached to the 182nd Tunnelling Company of the Royal Engineers when he was killed in action on the 02nd October 1918 aged 19 during the hundred days offensive which ended the First World War (8^th August-11^th November 1918).

He now rests at Honnechy British Cemetery, France, where his headstone bears the epitaph:

“THY WILL BE DONE”

Honnechy was part of the battlefield of Le Cateau in August 1914, and from that time it remained in German hands until the 09th October 1918, when the 25th Division and the 6th Cavalry Brigade captured it. It had been a German Hospital centre, and from its capture until the end of October it was a British Field Ambulance centre. The village was inhabited by civilians during the whole of the War. The cemetery stands on the site of a German Cemetery begun in the Battle of Cambrai 1917 and used by German troops and then by British until the 24th October 1918. The 300 German graves were removed to another burial ground, leaving 44 British graves; and the cemetery was re-made in 1922 and 1923 by the concentration of British graves almost entirely from German Cemeteries. There are now over 450, 1914-18 war casualties commemorated in this site. Of these, nearly a quarter are unidentified and a special memorial is erected to one Canadian soldier known to be buried among them. Other special memorials record the names of eight soldiers from the United Kingdom whose graves could not be found during the concentrations from German cemeteries. A number of graves in Plot I, Row C, identified as a whole but not individually, are marked by headstones bearing the additional words "Buried near this spot". 

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