|
|
This website uses cookies. By continuing to use this site you agree to accept cookies.
If you enjoy this site please consider making a donation.
Site Home
Help & FAQs
Features
Submissions
Information
Advertisements
World War 1 One ww1 wwII greatwar great 1914 1918 first battalion regiment
Rflmn. Irwin Baldwin
New Zealand Army 2nd Battalion NZ Rifle Brigade
from:Palmerston North, NZ
Irwin Baldwin was born in Steeton, near Keighley, in the West Riding of Yorkshire in 1884. He served in the police force in Goole in the East Riding of Yorkshire until 1909 when he contracted rheumatic fever and left the force. In 1910 he emigrated to New Zealand and settled in Palmerston North, where a cousin was already living. He worked as a driver for the Swan Dairy Company and then an engineer for the NZ Dairy Union. In 1914 his younger brother Thomas Edward Baldwin joined him in New Zealand.Both brothers volunteered for the armed services in 1915, but Irwin was refused, probably on account of having had rheumatic fever. His brother, Tom, was accepted and was posted to the NZ Rifle Brigade.
Irwin applied for a second time and was attested on 4th September 1917. He joined 'D' Company, 35th Reinforcements. His regiment embarked on the SS Tofua on 2nd March 1918 and after a short break in Suez arrived in Southampton on 15th May 1918. On 19 June 1918 he was transferred into the reserves for the Rifle Brigade and on 27th of August 1918 was detailed for course instruction at Brocton Camp in Staffordshire. He qualified as a Lance Corporal and joined 'B' Company, 2nd Battalion, Rifle Brigade on 17th September 1918.
It is probable that Irwin was stationed at Brocton Camp shortly after his arrival in England in May 1918. He was finally posted to the Front on 21st September 1918.
On 4th November 1918 he took part in the attack on the old fortress town of Le Quesnoy in northeastern France. He was severely wounded in the shoulder, right buttock and right leg when a shrapnel shell burst nearby. His right leg was amputated. He spent some months recovering at the New Zealand hospital at Walton on Thames and eventually embarked for New Zealand on board the SS Arawa on 5th October 1919.
His younger brother, Tom, fought at Flers on the Somme Front, Messines and Passchendaele. He was wounded in both knees on 12th October 1917 during the attack on Passchendaele. He also had his right leg amputated.
Irwin served for a second time with the New Zealand armed forces during WW2, in a clerical capacity and died in Palmerston North in 1962. His brother Tom died in 1966 and is buried in Steeton Cemetery.
Related Content:
Can you help us to add to our records?
The names and stories on this website have been submitted by their relatives and friends. If your relations are not listed please add their names so that others can read about them
Did your relative live through the Great War? Do you have any photos, newspaper clippings, postcards or letters from that period? Have you researched the names on your local or war memorial?
If so please let us know.
Do you know the location of a Great War "Roll of Honour?"We are very keen to track down these often forgotten documents and obtain photographs and transcriptions of the names recorded so that they will be available for all to remember.
Help us to build a database of information on those who served both at home and abroad so that future generations may learn of their sacrifice.
Celebrate your own Family History
Celebrate by honouring members of your family who served in the Great War both in the forces and at home. We love to hear about the soldiers, but also remember the many who served in support roles, nurses, doctors, land army, muntions workers etc.
Please use our Family History resources to find out more about your relatives. Then please send in a short article, with a photo if possible, so that they can be remembered on these pages.
The free section of The Wartime Memories Project is run by volunteers.
This website is paid for out of our own pockets, library subscriptions and from donations made by visitors. The popularity of the site means that it is far exceeding available resources and we currently have a huge backlog of submissions.
If you are enjoying the site, please consider making a donation, however small to help with the costs of keeping the site running.
Hosted by:
The Wartime Memories Project Website
is archived for preservation by the British Library
Copyright MCMXCIX - MMXXIV
- All Rights Reserved -We do not permit the use of any content from this website for the training of LLMs or for use in Generative AI, it also may not be scraped for the purpose of creating other websites.
