Pte 29648 Peter Cave

• Age: 22
• From: Aughton, Lancs
• Regiment: The King's (Liverpool Regiment) 17th Btn
• K.I.A Monday 3rd July 1916
• Commemorated at: Thiepval Memorial
  Panel Ref: P&F1D8B &8 C.

29648 Private Peter CAVE, 17^th Battn KLR – KIA 03.07.1916.

Born in 1894 in Aughton and baptised in Christ Church, Aughton on 17^th June that year, Peter Cave was the youngest of six children born to James Cave, a farm labourer, and his wife Mary (nee Balmer) who married in the same church on 29^th April 1893. He had three older brothers, an older sister and a twin sister.

The 1891 Census shows the family are living in Long Lane, Aughton, with Mary’s widowed father, John Balmer 74. James is 31, Mary is 35, they have their three eldest sons living with them, John 7 a scholar, James A.  5, and Edmund 2.

The 1901 Census shows the family living still in Long Lane, when Mary’s two eldest sons, John Balmer Cave 17, and Alfred Balmer Cave 15 are employed as farm labourer and teamster respectively, while Mary 45 is shown as widowed. The other children are Edmund 12, Mary A. 9, Peter 6, and Annie 6.

In the 1911 Census, Mary, aged 55 is shown as a farmer on Johnson House Farm, Ulnes Walton which is quite near to Aughton, and her three sons (John 27, Alfred 25 and Peter 17) are working as farm labourers possibly on the family farm.

Peter’s service record has not survived but his Medal Card shows that he embarked for France with the Pals on 07^th November 1915. Sadly he was one of the many killed on 03^rd July 1916 on the Somme, aged 22 years.

Peter has no known grave, his is another of the names on the Thiepval Memorial in France.

The Thiepval Memorial, the Memorial to the Missing of the Somme, bears the names of more than 72,000 officers and men of the United Kingdom and South African forces who died in the Somme sector before 20 March 1918 and have no known grave. Over 90% of those commemorated died between July and November 1916. 

On 01^st August 1932 the Prince of Wales and the President of France inaugurated the Thiepval Memorial in Picardy. The inscription reads: “Here are recorded the names of officers and men of the British Armies who fell on the Somme battlefields between July 1915 and March 1918 but to whom the fortune of war denied the known and honoured burial given to their comrades in death.”

Peter's death was reoprted in the Ormskirk Advertiser on 03rd August 1916:

The monthly meeting of the Croston urban District Council was held on Tuesday evening last at the office.

Honouring The Fallen

The chairman, at the outset, referred in feeling terms to the deaths in action at the front of Private Peter Cave, of the King's Liverpool Regiment, son of Mrs Cave, Drinkhouse Lane, and of Lance Corporal John Blackstone of the East Lancashire Regiment, son of Mr Thomas Blackstone, Grape Lane. The Bishop of Walley seconded, and the motion was carried and silence, the members standing.

Peter was awarded his three medals.

The Register of Soldiers’ Effects shows that monies owed to Peter were paid to his older brother, James Balmer Cave, their mother having died on 10^th December 1916, only five months after her son. 

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