Pte 52157 James Hynes McPhee

• Age: 21
• From: Manchester
• Regiment: The King's (Liverpool Regiment) 19th Btn
• K.I.A Thursday 12th October 1916
• Commemorated at: Warlencourt Brit Cem
  Panel Ref: V.F.21

James Hynes McPhee was born in 1896 in Manchester and was the son of Daniel McPhee and his wife Sarah (nee McAllister) who had been married in Glasgow in November 1887.

James was the third of Daniel and Sarah’s four children. The eldest two, John and Jane had been born in Scotland in 1889 and 1891. James and his younger brother Andrew (born in 1898) were both born in Manchester.

James’s father died in the September quarter of 1899, aged 38, when James was just three years old.

His widowed mother Sarah is found in the 1901 census living with her four children at 4 Poole Buildings, Hulme, Manchester.

Sarah is 35 years old at this point and had been born in Ardrossan, Scotland. She remarried in 1902 at St Marks in Hulme, her second husband was called Ralph Shaw. Sarah and Ralph went on to have two children – Lavinia in 1903 and Alexander in 1907.

The 1911 Census shows the family living at 42 Russell St Hulme Manchester.

Ralph is aged 51, born 1860, a smallware weaver, who had been born in Langley, Macclesfield. Five children are living at home Jeanie (Jane) is employed by Cornbrook Brewery Company James is an apprentice smallware weaver, Andrew and Lavinia are at school and 4 year old Alexander is at home. Their eldest brother, John, had been married in October 1910 and was living in Salford with his new wife Ellen.

James enlisted in Manchester and was originally Private 2945 in the Manchester Regiment. Following a transfer he was serving in the 19th Battalion, The King’s Liverpool Regiment as Private No 52157 when he was killed in action on the 12th October 1916, aged 21, during the Battle of the Transloy Ridges which was part of the ongoing Somme Offensive.

It had rained incessantly at the beginning of October 1916 and the ground was full of mud. In his book ‘The Liverpool Pals’ Graham Maddocks describes the day James was killed:

It was obvious that the Germans knew an attack was coming and from which direction it would be mounted. On the evening of the 11th the 20th Battalion moved up the line and dug two deep assembly trenches behind the 17th Battalion’s position for the attack the next day. The 19th Battalion also moved into its reserve positions known as Flers Trench. Although the rain has stopped, the ground was like a morass, with all the natural vegetation destroyed, it was difficult to tell exactly where the objectives lay. On the afternoon of the 12th at exactly 2.05pm, the attack began along the whole Corps line, covered by the local batteries of the Royal Field Artillery which still had line of sight. As the whistles blew, the 17th Battalion left its trenches to move forwards, at the same time No.1 and 2 Companies of the 20th Battalion moved forward and occupied the trenches vacated by the 17th. As they too went over the top, No.3 and 4 Companies took their place and waited in their turn to follow. No.2 and 3 Companies of the 19th Battalion moved up to occupy the assembly trenches dug the previous night by the 20th.

As soon as the attacking waves left their trenches the enemy artillery began to register on them and at the same time the defending infantry commenced a murderous rain of fire. Those German regiments were trained and experienced soldiers, well dug in on high ground, and for the most part, looking out on uncut wire. As such it was virtually impossible for them to miss the City Battalion men struggling to advance in the mud towards them.

Brigadier-General F.C.Stanley wrote that the Battalions were also suffering casualties due to the short shooting of the British heavy artillery fire. “I know from practical experience that they were our own guns which were shooting, and which were causing us quite a considerable number of casualties. The fault lay at that time from the fact that the heavy gunners would not send their FOO’s (Forward Observation Officers) far enough forward, but were content to observe us from right back”

Some ground was gained that day, about 150 yards, the 20th Battalion were not relieved until 24 hours later causing the men to endure another day and night in the front line trench.

James now rests at Warlencourt British Cemetery, France.

Warlencourt Cemetery is entirely a concentration cemetery, begun late in 1919 when graves were brought in from small cemeteries and the battlefields of Warlencourt and Le Sars.  The Graves Registration form shows graves from “Le Sars 6/1, 6/2, Hexham Road, Seven Elms”.

Graves were brought in from the original cemeteries at Hexham Road (Le Sars), and Seven Elms (Flers), as well as over 3,000 British graves due to the fighting which took place around the Butte de Warlencourt from the autumn of 1916 to the spring of 1917, and again in the German advance and retreat of 1918.   The cemetery now contains 3,505 Commonwealth burials and commemorations of the First World War, 1,823 of which are unidentified.

Manchester Evening 13th October 1919 

McPHEE - In loving memory of my dear brother, Private JAMES MCPHEE, 19th Kings Liverpool's, who was killed October 12, 1916.  

Greater love hath no man than this.  

That a man lay down his life for his friends. 

- Sadly missed by his brother ANDY, 4 Chapel Street, Hulme. 

Both of his brothers served in the Army, John from enlisting in the Royal Army Service Corps as a driver from September 1914 to discharge in March 1919. He had been in Egypt, The Dardanelles and France. Andrew also enlisted into the Manchester Regiment in November 1914 at the age of 16.

Their mother Sarah was living with her husband Ralph in Chapel Street, Manchester at the time of the 1939 Register. 

His step-father died, aged 81, in the June quarter of 1940. 

His mother Sarah, died aged 76, in 1943 and was buried on the 31st December at the Southern Cemetery, Manchester. 

He died in 1940, and Sarah died in 1943.

We currently have no further information on James Hynes McPhee, If you have or know someone who may be able to add to the history of this soldier, please contact us.

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