2nd Lieutenant James Stewart

• Age: 39
• From: Wavertree, Liverpool
• Regiment: 4TH KINGS
• Died on Saturday 28th October 1916
• Commemorated at: Guards Cem Lesboeuf
  Panel Ref: XI.W.5

The tale of James Stewart and his extended family is, in the context of war, one of real heartbreak.

Commissioned from the 4th King’s (Liverpool) Regiment to Second Lieutenant with the 22nd Battalion, James was wounded in the field in France on 28 October 1916. Having had his injuries treated, he was being carried from the dressing station when a shell dropped nearby. James and the two stretcher bearers carrying him were killed instantly.

James Stewart had joined the Liverpool Pals on their establishment, along with several fellow old boys of Saint Francis Xavier’s College in Liverpool, many of whom would also fall so bravely in combat. James was a man to be relied on, as the report in the Liverpool Daily Post, published 7 November 1916, in announcing James’ death states:

‘Exceedingly popular with his comrades in the ranks, he revealed as an officer fine qualities of valour and devotion to duty.’

James Stewart was born in Everton on 10th March 1877, and baptised on 18th March in Our Lady of Immaculate Conception, Liverpool, the son of Charles Colledge Stewart, a Scot who hailed from Leith, near Edinburgh, and Mary Doyle, who was born in Portlaw, County Waterford in Ireland. Charles and Mary were married in Liverpool on the 01st June 1868 at St Peter’s Priory and had eight children, six of whom survived to adulthood. James was the eldest son; he had older sisters Annie and Elizabeth, and a younger sister Mary, and two younger brothers, Percy and Francis.

The 1881 census finds the family at 36 Cochrane Street, Everton. His father, is aged 46, and is an insurance clerk, his mother is aged 37, they have five children in the household, all born in Liverpool are: Elizabeth J. 12 at school, Annie C. 10 at school, James aged 4, Mary 2, and Percy 2mths. They also have a nurse and a general servant. 

By 1891 they are living at 74 Eastbourne Street, Everton. His father, is aged 56, still employed as an insurance clerk, his mother is aged 46. There are six children in the household; Elizabeth 22, Annie 20, at school are James aged 14, Mary 12, Percy D. 10, and Francis J. 5. 

In 1901 they are at 1 Prince Alfred Road, Hunter’s Lane. His father is aged 66, and is still an insurance clerk, his mother is aged 57, children Elizabeth 32, Annie 29, James is 24, a bookkeeper, Percy 19, an insurance clerk, and Frank 15, an insurance clerk.  

In 1911 they live at Corinthian House, Hunter’s Lane, Wavertree. His father is aged 76, a retired insurance clerk, mother is aged 67. They advised that they have been married for 46 years, and have had 8 children, 6 of whom have survived. There are five children still living at home; Elizabeth J. 42, James 34, is single, a mercantile clerk, Mary 32, Percy D. 29, an insurance clerk, and Francis J. 55, a mercantile clerk.  

According to his Medal Cards he was Lance Corporal 5958, and whilst at the Inns of Court Officers Training Corps was commissioned on the 23rd April 1916 with the King’s Liverpool Regiment. 

His death was reported in the Nottingham and Midland Catholic News on Saturday 11 November 1916: 

“Eldest beloved son of Charles C and Mary Stewart of Liverpool R.I.P.”

Lesboeufs was attacked by the Guards Division on 15 September 1916 and captured by them on the 25th. It was lost on 24 March 1918 during the great German offensive, after a stubborn resistance by part of the 63rd Bn. Machine Gun Corps, and recaptured on 29 August by the 10th Bn. South Wales Borderers.

At the time of the Armistice, the cemetery consisted of only 40 graves (now Plot I), mainly those of officers and men of the 2nd Grenadier Guards who died on 25 September 1916, but it was very greatly increased when graves were brought in from the battlefields and small cemeteries round Lesboeufs.

There are now 3,137 casualties of the First World War buried or commemorated in this cemetery. 1,644 of the burials are unidentified but there are special memorials to 83 soldiers known or believed to be buried among them. Other special memorials record the names of five casualties buried in Ginchy A.D.S. Cemetery, whose graves were destroyed by shell fire, and three officers of the 2nd Bn. Coldstream Guards, killed in action on 26 September 1916 and known to have been buried together by the roadside near Lesboefs, whose grave could not later be located.

The cemetery was designed by Sir Herbert Baker.

Charles Stewart, who had trained in Glasgow, worked as an insurance clerk. An acknowledgement in the Liverpool Echo of 1 June 1918 marks the fact that he and Mary were celebrating the occasion of their golden wedding anniversary. Charles died a year later, aged 85, and was buried on the 06th May 1919 in the Roman Catholic section at Anfield Cemetery in a family plot.

His wife Mary died, aged 92, in 1936 and their children Elizabeth and Francis, neither of whom ever married, would join their father in the family plot by the end of the 1940s.

Charles and Mary’s second son, Percy Douglas Stewart, had married Josephine Dawson at the Church of the Blessed Sacrament, in Walton, on 29 September 1915. They had six children; Helen, Charles, Philip, Francis, John and Mary. Tragically for Percy and Josephine, following the outbreak of hostilities in 1939, the horror of war would again cast its cruel shadow.

Philip James Stewart – his middle name very likely a tribute to his late uncle – was a Sergeant in the RAF by the age of 21 and would die in an accident at Hawarden airfield in Flintshire on 03rd August 1942. Sergeant Stewart was attempting an emergency landing, after the Blenheim Mk. IV R3813 aircraft he was piloting suffered an engine failure during a training flight. He was buried at St. Austin’s Churchyard in Grassendale, Liverpool, where his parents and sister Mary would later be laid to rest beside him.

Little over a year later, on 9 September 1943, John Paul Stewart would perish at sea while serving an apprenticeship with the Merchant Navy. A Japanese submarine would torpedo the MV Larchbank, which was transporting general cargo and military equipment from Baltimore to Colombo and Calcutta via the Indian Ocean. 46 men, including an 18-year-old John Paul Stewart, would lose their lives.

Grateful thanks are extended to Jamie Yates for the detailed family biography of James. 

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