Alexander Bell                        Age 32

Regimental No. 53023           Private             7th Battalion, City of London Regiment

Previously 4948                                              C Squadron, 3rd Troop, 16th Lancers

Killed in action                                               25 May 1918

Buried                                                             Mesnil Communal Cemetery Extension

 

Personal Background

Alexander was the son of Andrew Bell and Jane, nee Weatherley, and husband of Mary Richardson Bell, of Laburnum Cottage, St. Boswells.  Alexander's parents came from Coldstream and Chirnside.  His father was an ostler/groom and Alexander was born and brought up in Edinburgh.  In 1911 the family was at East Thomas Street, Calton, and his father was a stableman for a cab proprietor, while Alexander was stableman in private service.   It is obvious, with his experience, why his army service began in a Cavalry regiment.

 

As his father died in the city in 1916, we can find no obvious link to the St. Boswells area at that time. So how Alexander and Mary met, we do not know, but they married at the Manse, St. Boswells on 4 October 1916, just a few months after his father's passing.  The marriage certificate shows him aged 30, a Private in C Squadron, 3rd Troop 16th Lancers, regimental no. 4948 and based at Curragh Camp, Ireland.  Mary Richardson, his bride, was 28, and her father was a shepherd at The Holmes, St. Boswells.  Mary does not seem to have left the St. Boswells area, as she appears in the Census of 1901 at Mainhill, and Thornielaw in 1911.  One possibility is that Alexander's regiment had been stationed in the Borders for training.  There is no indication that they had children from this all too brief marriage.

 

 

Military Background

Having originally been in the Lancers, Alexander seems to have moved about quite a lot.  From January - September 1917 he was with the 11 Royal Fusiliers, then the 32 RF from September to April 1918.  He next spent  3 -4 weeks in the Anson Battalion and from the end of April till his death, the 7th RF.  

 

Alexander's regiment were involved in action close to Albert, in Picardy.  On the night of 24/25 May, in conjunction with brigades on the left, the 4th Bedfords and 7th Royal Fusiliers carried out a raid on the Huts in Trench Reference Q45b. Four minutes after zero hour the enemy barrage was down on his SOS lines.  Allied casualties were 4 killed and 10 wounded.

 

The four who died, including Alexander Bell, are buried next to each other at Mesnil (Plot 1b26, A. Bell: 1b27, Brown; 1b28, Springford; 1b29, Campbell) .  This cemetery is 6.5 km north of Albert.