Captain Richard Francis Wolstenholme

Richard Francis was born in Birkenhead, Cheshire, in 1894, the son of Richard Mellor Wolstenholme and his wife Frances Mary (née Beardshaw).  His father, from Liverpool, and his mother, from Sheffield, married in 1893 in Derwent Woodlands, Chapel en Le Frith, Derbyshire, and had two children. Richard had a younger brother George Mellor, born in 1897.

 

In 1901 the family is living at 51 Beresford Road, Oxton, Birkenhead.  His father, 36, is a cotton broker/agent/employer, Richard is 6, George is 3. They have three domestic servants.

 

By 1911 his parents are living at 2 South Hill Grove, Oxton. His father, 46, is a cotton broker, his mother is 48. Also in the household is his widowed maternal grandfather, Jonathan Beardshaw, 84, and two servants.  Richard, 16, and George, 13, are boarding pupils at Stubbington House Preparatory School, Crofton, Fareham, Hampshire. 

 

After leaving school Richard continued his education in London and Paris, then joined his father’s cotton broking firm until the outbreak of war.  

 

Richard enlisted in Liverpool in August 1914 in the 17th (Pals) Bn, King’s (Liverpool) Regiment, as Private 15121.  At some point Richard was identified as officer material and sent to Officer Training School.  He was gazetted 2nd Lieutenant in the 15th Bn Cheshire Regiment. 

 

The 15th Cheshires embarked at Southampton for Le Havre on 29th January 1916 and in February went into front line trenches at Givenchy.  The battalion war diary gives an idea of Richard’s time at the front.  They went into action at Laventie and Ferme du Bois in April.  When at Croix Marmuse, the battalion moved on 14/5/1916, to Croix Barbée,  Lt. Wostenholme was appointed to remain behind for three hours to receive any claims submitted by the inhabitants. 

 

The battalion then moved to Neuve Chapelle. On 21/5/1916 patrols were sent out, three men from ‘X’ Company did not return, Lt. Wolstenholme,  (‘X’ Company), among others, took out a search party. One man was caught in the wire, but all returned safely. 

 

At midnight on 29th/30th May, raiding parties were sent out and advanced to within 35 yards of enemy front trench, having been attacked twice, “but their supply of bombs nearly exhausted, Lts. Frost and Wolstenholme decided to withdraw, and reached their exact starting point, the officers returning last, very disappointed at not having entered the enemy’s trench. Though the main objective of the raid was not attained, the party achieved success and proved their steadiness in unexpected circumstances.  They are confident they killed some of the enemy and in the front line the horns blown for the stretcher bearers were distinctly heard. The party nearly reached the enemy parapet and when forced to retire did so in perfect order.”

 

Early July was spent marching to Beauval, then to Bray on the 13th, and in the 16th to Bernafay Wood, where X Company held the trench on the east side of the wood; the wood held under severe shelling. Instructions were issued that the wood was to be held at all cost. Bernafay Wood was kept under constant shell fire until they were relived on the 20th, when they were rested but still heavily shelled.

 

On 23rd July orders were received to occupy trenches south of Montauban, the old German front and support lines, then to relieve the 18th Lancs Fusiliers in Maltz Horn Trench. ‘X’ Coy subsequently held the trench east of Trones Wood, suffering continuous bombardment.

 

On 1/8/1916 the battalion moved to Bois de Tailles, and marched to Mericourt to entrain for Saleux, then marched 12 miles to billets in Oissy. On the 10th they moved to The Citadel, on the 19th moved up to Silesia Trenches, supplying carrying parties, then moved up to Bronfay Farm.

 

By the beginning of September the battalion was in trenches near Arras. On 30th September Lt. Wolstenholme returned from leave.  The war diary records that on 7th October he was appointed Captain whilst commanding a company. On the 13th Capt. Wolstenholme returned from a course. Snow fell on the 18th, “weather cold and raw, the men suffer from exposure but ‘stick it’ well”.  On the 28th the weather was frosty, with a fog during the morning, tempting parties out to examine the wire and doing work in No Man’s Land. Capt. Wolstenholme and an artillery officer were killed.  Lt. Fitzgerald was wounded trying to recover the body of the artillery officer. The 29th and 30th were quiet days; on both days patrols were sent out to recover the body of the missing officer, examining shell holes and craters, without success. 

 

Richard’s body was evidently later identified, as he now rests in Faubourg d’Amiens Cemetery, Arras.  He was 22 years old.  His headstoe bears the epitaph:

"GREATER LOVE HATH NO MAN THAN THIS" 

 

The French handed over Arras to Commonwealth forces in the spring of 1916 and the system of tunnels upon which the town is built were used and developed in preparation for the major offensive planned for April 1917.

The Commonwealth section of the FAUBOURG D'AMIENS CEMETERY was begun in March 1916, behind the French military cemetery established earlier. It continued to be used by field ambulances and fighting units until November 1918. The cemetery was enlarged after the Armistice when graves were brought in from the battlefields and from two smaller cemeteries in the vicinity.

The cemetery contains over 2,650 Commonwealth burials of the First World War, 10 of which are unidentified. The graves in the French military cemetery were removed after the war to other burial grounds and the land they had occupied was used for the construction of the Arras Memorial and Arras Flying Services Memorial.

The adjacent ARRAS MEMORIAL commemorates almost 35,000 servicemen from the United Kingdom, South Africa and New Zealand who died in the Arras sector between the spring of 1916 and 7 August 1918, the eve of the Advance to Victory, and have no known grave. The most conspicuous events of this period were the Arras offensive of April-May 1917, and the German attack in the spring of 1918. Canadian and Australian servicemen killed in these operations are commemorated by memorials at Vimy and Villers-Bretonneux. A separate memorial remembers those killed in the Battle of Cambrai in 1917.

The adjacent ARRAS FLYING SERVICES MEMORIAL commemorates more than 1,000 airmen of the Royal Naval Air Service, the Royal Flying Corps, and the Royal Air Force, either by attachment from other arms of the forces of the Commonwealth or by original enlistment, who were killed on the whole Western Front and who have no known grave.

During the Second World War, Arras was occupied by United Kingdom forces headquarters until the town was evacuated on 23 May 1940. Arras then remained in German hands until retaken by Commonwealth and Free French forces on 1 September 1944. The 1939-1945 War burials number 8 and comprise 3 soldiers and 4 airmen from the United Kingdom and 1 entirely unidentified casualty. Located between the 2 special memorials of the 1914-1918 War is the special memorial commemorating an officer of the United States Army Air Force, who died during the 1939-1945 War. This special memorial, is inscribed with the words "Believed to be buried in this cemetery". In addition, there are 30 war graves of other nationalities, most of them German.

Both cemetery and memorials were designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens, with sculpture by Sir William Reid Dick.

His death was reported in the Liverpool Echo on the 05th December 1916:

“Oxton Officer Killed:  Captain Richard Francis Wolstenholme, of the Cheshire Regiment, who was killed in action on November 28, at the age of twenty-two, was  the eldest son of Mr. and Mrs. Wolstenholme, of South Hill Grove, Oxton, Birkenhead.  He was educated at Birkenhead School, also at Stubbington House, Fareham, where he captained both cricket and football teams, and Paris.  He afterwards took an active part in the conduct of his fathers firm, Messrs. Wolstenholme and Holland, one of the oldest cotton-broking firms in the city.  At the outbreak of the war he immediately enlisted in the King’s (Liverpool Regiment), subsequently taking a commission in the Cheshire Regiment.  He went to the front in January last, and was Gazetted Captain on 17th September this year.  He was greatly esteemed in social and business circles.”

 

Probate was granted to his father, Richard Mellor Wolstenholme, cotton broker, in the amount of £1,352-0s-9d.  

 

His brother George joined the Inns of Court O.T.C. at 18, was gazetted to the Yorkshire Retiment, and went to France in January 1917.  He won the Military Cross, saw service in Italy and was transferred back to France shortly before he was killed on 5/10/18.  He was 21 years old and now rests at at Busigny C.C. where his headstone bears the same epitaph as his brother Richard:

"GREATER LOVE HATH NO MAN THAN THIS".

Their parents had now lost both of their sons. They retired to south Westmorland and in 1939 are residents at the Crown Hotel, Windermere.  His father died in 1945 age 80, and his mother in 1949, at the age of 86.

 

Richard is commemorated in the Royal Liverpool Golf Club, Hoylake, in the University of London Student Records and in “Wisden in the Great War: Lives of Cricket’s Fallen 1914-1918” edited by Andrew Renshaw (2014)as follows:

CAPT RICHARD FRANCIS WOLSTENHOLME (Cheshire Regt), killed on November 28 aged 22, had captained the Eleven at Stubbington House, Fareham  

 

Richard and George are both commemorated on the following memorials:

Liverpool Cotton Association Memorial

Men of Birkenhead Cenotaph

 

And on the pulpit in Christ Church, Claughton, Wirral, erected by their parents.  A well-known West Country craftsman was commissioned to carve the pulpit.  Christ's Crucifixion, Ascension and Resurrection are depicted in different panels. Two soldiers are seen at the foot of the cross.