Pte 50193 Joseph Hubert Fotherby

• Age: 24
• From: Flagg, Derbyshire
• Regiment: The King's (Liverpool Regiment) 19th Btn
• K.I.A Thursday 20th September 1917
• Commemorated at: Tyne Cot Memorial
  Panel Ref: Panel 31-34

Joseph Hubert Fotherby was born in 1892 in Flagg, Derbyshire, and resided in Monyash, Derbyshire. He was the son of John Peacock and Jane Fotherby, of Ivy Cottage, Monyash, Bakewell, Derbyshire. 

The 1911 Census shows Joseph working at the home of Martha Norton aged 68, and her daughter Mary aged 38 and son Isaac aged 36. Joseph is aged 18 and is one of three servants employed as farm labourers, the other two are; Joseph Belfield aged 21 and Frederick Thompson aged 16.  

He enlisted in Bakewell, Derby, and served origianlly as Private 69750 with the Leicestershire Regiment and following a transfer was serving in the 19^th Battalion, The King’s Liverpool Regiment as Private No 50103, when he was killed in action on the 20^th September, 1917, aged 24, during the Third Battle of Ypres (Passchendaele).

Details of the action in which Joseph Hubert was killed are recorded in the Battalion diary:

19^th September 1917 – In support in Denys Wood.  Battalion relieved 17^th KLR in front line. Relief complete about 11 p.m.   

20^th September 1917 – A raid was carried out by a party of the battalion of 25 OR under Capt. C. Laird, just before 6 a.m. on The Twins. Enemy machine gun fire, however, proved too much for them, although several attempts were made to reach the objective.  Capt. C. Laird was killed in the operation, also 6 OR, and 14 OR were wounded.

Graham Maddocks in “Liverpool Pals”, p.178, explains:  

“The remainder of September was fairly uneventful for the rest of the Pals Battalions, except for two trench raids made by the 19^th Battalion on 20 September 1917, which, elsewhere on the Salient, was the opening day of the phase of the offensive later referred to as the Battle of the Menin Road. These raids were made for two purposes. The first was an attempt to confuse the enemy as to the intensity and direction of the main attack, and the second was to try to capture two blockhouses known as ‘The Twins’, which commanded the 19^th Battalion’s trench front, and thus was able to dominate all its movement. The raiding party, consisting of Captain C. Laird, and twenty-five other ranks left the British front line at 6.00 a.m. and moved into No Man’s Land. However, it was soon spotted, and machine guns opened fire from the blockhouses. Despite a most determined effort to carry the objectives, the situation was hopeless from the start, and Laird and six other ranks were killed and fourteen more soldiers were wounded.”

Joseph's body was not recovered from the battlefield or was subsequently lost as he has no known grave. He is commemorated on the Tyne Cot Memorial, Belgium.

Those United Kingdom and New Zealand servicemen who died after August 16th 1917 are named on the Tyne Cot Memorial, a site which marks the furthest point reached by Commonwealth forces in Belgium until nearly the end of the war.

The Tyne Cot Memorial now bears the names of almost 35,000 officers and men whose graves are not known. The memorial, designed by Sir Herbert Baker with sculpture by Joseph Armitage and F.V. Blundstone, was unveiled by Sir Gilbert Dyett on 20 June 1927.

The memorial forms the north-eastern boundary of Tyne Cot Cemetery, which was established around a captured German blockhouse or pill-box used as an advanced dressing station.

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