Saturday 13th November 1915

Billets in Estaires

The Battalion received orders to re-join 23^rd Division the following day.

Pte. Barker Stott (see 15^th August 1914), one of the Keighley recruits who had been added to Tunstill’s original volunteers died in hospital in Merville. At some point (the exact date is unknown) he had suffered a seemingly innocuous injury to his hand from a rusty nail. However, he had subsequently contracted tetanus and died in hospital; he was twenty years old. He was buried at Merville Communal Cemetery.

A serious accident occurred at the 69^th Brigade bomb school, resulting in the deaths of three men and leaving twenty others wounded. One of the men killed was from 10DWR; he was Sgt.Charles McCusker (see below) and he would be buried, alongside the two men from 11^th West Yorks who were killed, at X-Farm Cemetery, La Chapelle d’Armentieres. At least one of the men wounded was also from 10DWR; Pte. Tom Bradley (see below) was evacuated to 70^th Field Ambulance but died of his injuries and would be buried at Erquinghem-Lys Churchyard Extension. Among those wounded was Pte. Harry Siddall (see 7^th October); he suffered facial wounds and would be admitted via 70^th Field Ambulance, 2^nd Casualty Clearing Station and 13^th General Hospital at Boulogne to 13^th Stationary Hospital, also at Boulogne.

Charles McCusker was a 34 year-old tram driver from Halifax; he was married and had one daughter. Tom Bradley was a 19 year-old woolcomber from Bradford.

Another 10DWR man who may have been present at the time of the accident was Pte. Thomas Edward Dawson. He had written to his family ten days previously, telling them that, “I am still at the bomb school, going through a course of making up bombs and throwing them. We have instructions how to use them effectively. I was very interested in them up to a week ago when my nerves went wrong”. Pte. Dawson had been an original member of the Battalion; he was a 33 year-old iron foundry labourer from Halifax and was married, with four children..

Sgt. Charles McCusker