Pte 42710 James Charles Cadwell

• Age: 19
• From: Southport, Lancs
• Regiment: The King's (Liverpool Regiment) 17th Btn
• K.I.A Monday 9th April 1917
• Commemorated at: Henin Crucifix Cem
  Panel Ref: A.48

James Charles Cadwell was born in 1898 in Southport and was the son of Charles Cadwell and his wife Ruth (nee Halsall) who married in 1889.

At the time of the 1901 census the family lived at 79 Old Park Lane, Southport. Charles was a self employed gardener, he was 31 and his wife Ruth was 30. James was 3 years old and had two older sisters Mary aged 8 and Evaline aged 6 and baby brother William aged 8 months.

Sadly baby William died in 1901. The couple had another son in 1904 who they also named William.   

The 1911 census records the family living at the same address. James’s sisters Mary and Evaline are working as dressmakers, James is at school and the young William Robert is 7 and another son Joseph who is 3 are at home.

He enlisted in Seaforth, Liverpool and was serving in the 17^th Battalion, The King’s Liverpool Regiment as Private No 42710 when he was killed in action on the 9^th April 1917 aged 19 during the Battle of Arras.

17^th,  19^th & 20th  Battalion at the  Battle of Arras 09/04/1917

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 3.7p.m. At 4p.m.Lieut Beaumont, commanding “A" Company, reported that he had had some forty casualties in passing through the enemy’s barrage. The next message, timed 4.40p.m., 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.

James now rests at Henin Crucifix Cemetery, France where the inscription on his headstone reads:

“LEST WE FORGET”

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.

His death was reported in the Southport Visiter dated 21st April 1917:

The sad news was received yesterday morning by Mr & Mrs Chas Cadwell, 79 Old Park Lane, High Park, that their eldest son, Private James C Cadwell of the King's Liverpool Regiment, was killed in action on the 9th inst. The information was contained in a letter from the Lance Corporal of his platoon who stated that Cadwell was killed during a charge made by the battalion. Private Cadwell, who was 19 years of age, joined the forces in June last and proceeded on active service the following October. Prior to enlisting he was employed by Fairhurst's drapers Eastbank Street and was well known in the town. 

He is also commemorated on the Family headstone located in St Cuthbert’s, Southport.

ALSO OF THEIR SON 

JAMES CHARLES 17TH KING'S 42710
KILLED IN ACTION AT HENIN APRIL 9TH 1917
HE GAVE HIS LIFE FOR HIS COUNTRY
AGED 19 YEARS

Soldiers Effects and Pension to father Charles

His younger brother,  Joseph died on 19th October 1927 aged 19. His mother Ruth, died on 16th March 1945 aged 74 whilst his father, Charles died on 24th August 1952 aged 82

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