Newton-le-Willows and Earlestown War Memorial

In Memory of

Private Herbert Edwin Haselden

339652
98th Field Ambulance, Royal Army Medical Corps
Killed in Action 31st July 1917 Age 25

Herbert was the son of Mr and Mrs Herbert E. Haselden. A native of Ashton-in-Makerfield, he was educated at St. Thomas’s Schools, Ashton Grammar School and at Hartley University College, Southampton. He was a very good hockey player.

He was on the staff of the Manor School, Newton Common, from 1912, but, as a member of the College Company, 5th Hampshire Regiment for five years, he was called to his regiment at the outbreak of war. Owing to weak eyesight – one eye almost blind – he was not accepted for foreign service.

According to the NEG obituary, published on 24th August 1917, “His active disposition, however, would not allow him to remain on home service, so he transferred to the R.A.M.C. and was sent to France in March last with the West Lancashire Brigade.”

There are no details of his death, but he was killed on the first day of the Third Battle of Ypres, usually called Passchendaele (though the NEG obituary gives his date of death as 1st August). Many who fell simply disappeared into the mud. Herbert’s name is one of more than 54,000 names of officers and men who died in the Ypres Salient before August 16th 1917, have no known grave and so are commemorated on the Menin Gate, at Ieper.