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Pte. Edward William Smiles
British Army 21st Batallion Northumberland Fusiliers
from:Hetton le Hole, County Durham
(d.9th Oct 1917)
My maternal grandfather, Edward William Smiles, was born in Lyon Street Hetton le Hole on 13 May 1886. His parents were James Smiles, a coal miner, and Elizabeth Smiles née Cunningham. Though most of the men in his family were miners, he bacame a shop assistant at the Co-op. On 22 June 1910, Edward married Mary Jane Hutchinson in Houghton le Spring, and they moved to a house in South Market Street, Hetton. They had two daughters, Elsie May and Doris, my mother. He then died in the war. My grandmother Mary Smiles never liked to talk about him, merely saying that he was "lost in the war." She fell out with his younger brother Jim who shared a house with her at some stage, so we lost touch with the Smiles family. Then when she died we found a card notifying her that Edward William Smiles was killed on 9th October 1917 in "France and Flanders" and giving his unit and number as 203487, King's Own Yorkshire Light Infantry. We later found he had joined the Northumberland Fusiliers, 21st Battalion (2nd Tyneside Scottish) with number 21/1517. This means he probably saw action on 1st July 1916 at the Somme, and was transferred to the K.O.Y.L.I. later. It seems his war service records were among those destroyed by a bomb in the second world war. The Light Infantry Office kindly sent a photocopy of the battalion war diary for the day he died: as part of 148th Brigade, 49th (West Riding) Division, they attacked over the swollen Ravebeek stream near Gravenstafel just south-west of Passchendaele. They were repulsed by heavy German machine gun fire. The action is notable in regimental history because both Lt.Colonel H Moorhouse and his son Captain R W Moorhouse died within minutes of each other. Neither they (apparently) nor my grandfather were identified after the battle; they are commemorated on the Tyne Cott memorial. Now I always buy a poppy; but my grandmother never would.
