Picture of Canadian War Grave at Leeds.
I went back to Holbeck cemetery here in Leeds a couple of days back, I never finished looking around last time and although the weather was not really good, very cloudy, cold and totally overcast I had a reason for stopping by there.
I recently got an email from someone in Canada, who having seen my earlier post about the cemetary at Holbeck emailed to ask if I had a photo of the grave of their great uncle who left Canada for the Great War and died in Leeds in 1916. I thought not because I would have recalled a Canadian Commonwealth War Graves Commission – CWGC headstone with the maple leaf at the top and this was the case but I promised that I would go back and have a look.
The last CWGC headstone that I found in the cemetery was the one I was looking for, Lewis Haddlesey, born Feb 15, 1896. Lewis joined up in August 1916 and served with the 14th Canadian Forestry Corp and died Dec 31 1916, after 4 months in the service at the age of 22.
I was saying to someone a little while back I get more questions about graveyards than any other subject I have written about. I do try to be helpful because my grandfather was at Passchendaele. I too served in the military, so I had the honour if that’s the word, to attend a couple of military funerals. Also of course there is the social history in churchyards behind these rather bleak CWGC headstones and also the normal civilian gravestones. I came across some last week in a new to me cemetery and later discovered one was a Battle of Britain Spitfire pilot.
Leedsdailyphoto.com 