Wednesday 3rd November 1915

Front line trenches near Fauquissart.

As the rain continued to fall, so conditions in the trenches became ever more difficult, The War Diary simply stated, “Trenches very bad. In places water came up to the knees & the mud was over ankles”. However, no casualties were sustained.

Orders were issued that the men were not to occupy the dugouts because of the danger of collapse but a number of men failed to heed the instruction and overnight, 3^rd/4^th, a dugout collapsed, burying three men from ‘D’ Company, two of whom died. L.Cpl. Samuel Holroyd (12328) and Pte. Hildred Woodhouse (13559) were both originally buried at Rue-du-Bacquerot (Wangerie Post) New Military Cemetery, which was close to the hamlet of Wangerie but both were exhumed after the Armistice and now lie in The Royal Irish Rifles Graveyard, Laventie. Samuel Holroyd was a 22 year-old textile worker from Brownroyd, Bradford; he had been married, to Maria Firth, while the Battalion was in training in the Spring of 1915. Hildred Woodhouse was 19 years old from Cumberworth, near Huddersfield.