L/Cpl 57380 John Boyd

Although his CWGC record gives his age as 44, and SDGW gives his birthplace as Urr, Kirkcudbrightshire, birth and census records point to this man, John Boyd, born on 18th June 1877 in Mill Street, Dalbeattie, Kirkcudbrightshire. The eldest son of Thomas Boyd, master joiner, and his wife Catherine Cowan (nee Moffat). His father was born in Urr in 1834 and his mother in Parton, Kircudbrightshire, in about 1849.  They married in February 1877. Five children are found on censuses. John had younger brothers James, William Alexander, and Thomas, and a younger sister Barbara.

 

The 1881 census finds the family in Mill Street, Dalbeattie.

The father is a 45 year old joiner, his mother, Catherine, is 33 years of age John is 3. Also in the household is his cousin William Boyd, 22, a joiner.

 

At the time of the 1891 census, John, 13, is living with his maternal grandparents James and Christina Moffat, farmers, his uncle John, aunt Elizabeth, and three servants, in Corse, Balmaclellan (about 20 miles northwest of Dalbeattie).  His father aged 52, is a joiner, mother Catherine is 42, with James, 8, William, 6, and Barbara, 3, are still in Mill Street.  Living with them is his cousin Jessie Boyd, 14, from the Isle of Man.  Thomas is not in the household.  

 

The same family members are present in 1901. His father is 62, working as a joiner, his mother is 52, James, 16, is a “joiner’s son”, William is 14, a printer(?), Barbara is 13, and cousin Jessie is 23, a domestic worker.

 

John has moved to London, and is found at 217 The Grove, Hammersmith, living with his uncle Alexander Moffat, 40, a draper working on his own account, and his wife Eva, 32, born in Maidstone, Kent, and a domestic servant.  John is 23, working as a draper’s assistant. 

 

Alexander Cowan Moffat had married Evangeline Mary A. Layman (or Leyman)  in London in 1897.  At some point Eva and John moved to Glasgow and lived as man and wife. Neither John nor Eva is found on the 1911 England census, and unfortunately the 1911 Scotland census is not available.  

 

Eva is later shown as Mrs. E.M.A. McCallum. She married Duncan McCallum in 1918 in Blythswood, Glasgow. They are found at 4 Camperdown Street, Glasgow on the 1922 electoral roll.

 

 

John was living in Glasgow when he enlisted, in about October 1915, as 1057, Lowland Divisional Cyclist Company.  He was transferred to the 20th Battalion of The King’s Liverpool Regiment before shipping overseas. 

He was serving as Lance-Corporal No 57380 when he was killed in action on the 09^th April 1917, aged 39, during the Battle of Arras.

17^th,  19^th & 20th  Battalion at the  Battle of Arras 09^th April 1917

Everard Wyrall records the events of the day  in Volume 2 of his History of the King's Regiment (Liverpool).

The 89^th Brigade formed up for the attack with the 19^th King's on the right and the 20^th King’s on the left. The 17^th King’s supplied the “mopping up" parties and he 2nd Bedfords were in close support.

It was just after 3pm when the advance began “According to scheduled time the waves advanced in good style and with determination; everyone was cheerful and in the best of spirits”

That advance is described by others as magnificent. From the OP’s the observing officers saw a wonderful sight – long lines of men advancing steadily up a long and gradual slope towards the enemy’ front line. Then suddenly they disappeared. The observers quite pardonably, imagined that the German front line had fallen into the hands of the assaulting troops and that the latter were on the way to the enemy’s support line. Alas something very different had happened. When the advancing troops had reached the summit of the long slope up which they advanced the ground suddenly dipped before the German front line , and when the observing officers thought they  were already in the Bosche lines they had not, as a matter of fact, even reached the wire. What the observers took to be the front line was really the support line; the front line could not be seen  - it lay just behind the crest of that slight rise in the ground.

The attacking waves of the 19^th King’s got within 100 yards of the German wire but were then held up. They were faced by three belts of entanglements, practically untouched by our artillery, and nothing could be done but to dig in or else take shelter in the many shell- shell-with which “No Man’s Land" was pitted. By this time the battalion’s losses were very heavy, and when darkness fell “A" and “B" Companies (about 140 in all) lay in shell-holes, two or three hundred yards north east of St. Martin, but just south of the Cojeul River, and “C" and “D" Companies (140 all ranks) were along the river bank, but on the northern side about 150 yards north east of St. Martin.

The first waves of the 20^th King’ advanced at 3.7pm. At 4pm Lieut Beaumont, commanding “A" Company, reported that he had had some forty casualties in passing through the enemy’s barrage. The next message, timed 4.40pm, stated that the position of the battalion at that period was on a crest in front of the enemy’s wire and about 100 yards from it. On the right the 21^st Division was observed to have penetrated the enemy’s front line, but in the left the right Battalion of the 21^st Brigade (the Wilts) was on the St. Martin- Neuville Vitasse road; the left flank of the 20^th King's was, therefore, “ in the air”.

Urgent messages were sent up from Battalion Headquarters to “push on, keeping in touch with right” But little else could be accomplished until those formidable belts of wire had been cut sufficiently to allow the rapid passage of the attacking troops, headed by their bombers.

At 9:30 that night 89^th Brigade Headquarters ordered both the 19^th and 20^th Battalions to withdraw, the former to the two sunken roads running south east from St. Martin, the latter to north west of St. Martin; the guns had been ordered to cut the enemy’s wire during the night in preparation for another attack during the 10^th April.

Of the 17^th King’s  - the “moppers up" – there is little to relate. There was nothing to “mop up" so that they did not function. Yet they had shared all the perils of the advance, and when  after they had fallen back and at midnight held the following positions, “B", “C", and “D" Companies in and around the sunken road north of Boiry-Becquerelle and “A" Company in trenches west of Henin, they lost 2 officers and 16 other ranks killed, and 3 officers and 48 other ranks wounded. 

He now lies in a Special Memorial at Henin Crucifix Cemetery, France. The Inscription on his headstone reads:

“HE DIED THAT WE MAY LIVE”

Henin-sur-Cojeul was captured on 02nd April 1917, lost in March 1918 after an obstinate resistance by the 40th Division, and retaken on 24 August 1918 by the 52nd (Lowland) Division.

Henin Crucifix Cemetery is named from a calvary standing on the opposite side of the road. It was made by units of the 30th Division after the capture of the village in 1917.

Henin Crucifix Cemetery contains 61 burials and commemorations of the First World War. Two of the burials are unidentified and eight graves, destroyed in later fighting, are now represented by special memorials.

The cemetery was designed by G H Goldsmith.