Pte 16642 John Caulfield

According to his attestation form, this soldier was born in Toxteth in 1884.  However, there are no birth records to be found anywhere in the Liverpool area under the name John Caulfield. It appears that he was born John Laverty, to parents John Francis Laverty and Mary Teresa (née Farrell), who married in 1882. He was born on 08th September 1884 and baptised in Our Lady of Mount Carmel on 21st September 1884, his parents then living at 127 Grafton Street.

 

John had an older sister Ann Elizabeth, born in 1883.

Sadly, his father died at the age of 27 in 1885 when John was under a year old and his mother remarried to John Caulfield in 1889.  

 

In 1891 Mary and John Caulfield are living at 14 Silvester Street. His stepfather, 30, is a beer house keeper, born in Ireland, his mother is the same age, born in Liverpool, Annie is 7 and John 6, both listed as Caulfield. The family also have a domestic servant.

 

Their daughter, John’s half sister, Mary Josephine Caulfield was born in 1892.

 

His mother was widowed again in 1895:  John Joseph Caulfield, age 35, licensed victualler, of 236 Crown Street, died November 1895. Probate in the amount of £177 was granted to his widow Mary.

 

Neither John nor the rest of the family has been found on the 1901 census, when he would have been 16 years old. However, in the 1900 Gores Directory and Electoral Register, Mary Caulfield is victualler at 236 Crown Street, a public house.

 

1911 finds them living in six rooms at 127 Crown Street, which is a public house and dwelling house. His mother, 50, is the publican, on her own account, John, 26, is a brewer’s clerk, Maisie (Mary), 18, is a student teacher.  Also in the household is his married sister Annie Tomlinson, 27, and her two daughters, as well as an 18-year old servant.

 

He enlisted at St George's Hall in Liverpool on 01^st September 1914, as Private 16642, 18^th (Pals) Battalion of The King’s Liverpool Regiment, giving age as 29 years and 330 days, occupation clerk. He advised that he had previously served 3 years in in 2^nd Liverpool (Vol.).

 

From the 23^rd September 1914 he was billeted at Hooton Park Race Course and remained there until 03^rd December 1914 when they moved into the hutted accommodation at Lord Derby’s estate at Knowsley Hall. On 30th April 1915 the 18th Battalion alongside the other three Pals battalions left Liverpool via Prescot Station for further training at Belton Park, Grantham. They remained here until September 1915 when they reached Larkhill Camp on Salisbury Plain. 

In July 1915, whilst still in training, John was a witness at the wedding of his (half) sister Mary, the family still at 127 Crown Street.

 

John reached France on 07th November 1915 arriving at Boulogne via Folkestone.

 

A fellow Pal, George McGuinness, Private 16665, of the 18th Battalion K.L.R., was killed in action on the first day of the Battle of the Somme, 01st July 1916.  John wrote to George’s parents conveying the sad news of their son’s death in action.  He stated that George had been killed by a bullet, had died nobly, and was now receiving his reward in heaven.

 

His service record survives and shows - 

09/08/1916 attached 21st Bde

01/09/1916 awarded Good Conduct Badge 

01/09/1916 granted Professional Pay Class I

09/01/1917 returned to unit

03/02/1917 attached 2nd Bn Yorks Reg.

His battalion saw action on the Somme throughout 1916 and he will have taken part in the fighting around the Hidenburg Line in April 1917. 

 

John was wounded in action on 13th June 1917 and died the same day. 

His loss was reported in the Liverpool Daily Post, 28^th June 1917 under the heading,

“Died From Wounds” -

“June 13, from wounds received in action the same day, Private John Caulfield, the devoted and only son of Mary Caulfield, 23 Thurston Road, Anfield (late of Crown Street). (One of the best.) R.I.P.  (Sadly missed by his loving mother.)”

“June 13, on active service, John, the dearly loved and only brother of Mrs. Quirk, 23 Thurston Road, Anfield. (Ever remembered by Maisie and Terry.)”

“June 13, on active service, John, the dearly loved and only brother of Mrs. Tomlinson, 26 Douglas Road, Anfield. (Ever remembered by Annie and Charley.)”

John was engaged to be married when he was killed -

“June 13, died of wounds, Private John Caulfield. (Sadly missed by his loving Fiancee Alice, and all at 2 Eaton Avenue, Liscard.)” 

He now rests at Railway Dugouts Burial Grounds just outside Ypres in Belgium. 

The commune of Zillebeke contains many Commonwealth cemeteries as the front line trenches ran through it during the greater part of the First World War.

Railway Dugouts Cemetery is 2 Kms west of Zillebeke village, where the railway runs on an embankment overlooking a small farmstead, which was known to the troops as Transport Farm. The site of the cemetery was screened by slightly rising ground to the east, and burials began there in April 1915. They continued until the Armistice, especially in 1916 and 1917, when Advanced Dressing Stations were placed in the dugouts and the farm. They were made in small groups, without any definite arrangement and in the summer of 1917 a considerable number were obliterated by shell fire before they could be marked. The names "Railway Dugouts" and "Transport Farm" were both used for the cemetery.

At the time of the Armistice, more than 1,700 graves in the cemetery were known and marked. Other graves were then brought in from the battlefields and small cemeteries in the vicinity, and a number of the known graves destroyed by artillery fire were specially commemorated. The latter were mainly in the present Plots IV and VII.

The cemetery now contains 2,459 Commonwealth burials and commemorations of the First World War. 430 of the burials are unidentified and 261 casualties are represented by special memorials. Other special memorials record the names of 72 casualties buried in Valley Cottages and Transport Farm Annexe Cemeteries whose graves were destroyed in later fighting.

VALLEY COTTAGES CEMETERY, ZILLEBEKE, was among a group of cottages on "Observatory Road", which runs Eastward from Zillebeke village. It contained the graves of 111 soldiers from the United Kingdom and Canada. It was in an exposed position during the greater part of the war.

TRANSPORT FARM ANNEXE was about 100 metres South-East of the Railway Dugouts Cemetery, on the road to Verbrandenmolen. The graves in it were removed to Perth Cemetery (China Wall), Zillebeke, but one officer, whose grave could not found, is specially commemorated here.

The cemetery was designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens.

John earned his three medals.  His mother Mary received John’s Army effects, including a War Gratuity of £13.

 

In 1919 his mother provided information on John’s living relatives; His sister Mary Quirk was living at home with his mother at 23 Thurston Road, and sister Annie Tomlinson was living at 26 Douglas Road.  It is not known when his mother died.

 

John is commemorated on the following Memorials:

St. Anne’s RC Church, Edge Hill

St. Francis Xavier RC School