Pte 31847 Kingsford Taylor

• Age: 24
• From: Blackburn
• Regiment: The King's (Liverpool Regiment) 19th Btn
• K.I.A Monday 9th April 1917
• Commemorated at: St Martin Calvaire Brit Cem
  Panel Ref: I.A.8

Kingsford was born in Darwen, Blackburn in the fourth quarter of 1892 the son of Annie Taylor. His birth was registered as Kingsford but at his baptism at 3 years old in St. Joseph’s, Darwen, in August 1896 (stating born in November), he was baptised Thomas Kingsford, son of Ann Taylor, residing at 44 Pole Lane.  He was baptised on the same day as his younger sister, Elizabeth (Betsy), born in 1896, with the same godparents, Matthew and Margaret Hackett.

The children’s births are registered under mother’s maiden name Taylor or Thompson. 

The 1901 Census shows him living at 44 Pole Lane, Darwen. Kingsford is 9 years of age and a scholar, he lives with his mother and four siblings. His mother is head of the household, she is married and is shown as a charwoman who was born in Shropshire in 1861. His siblings are all younger than Kingsford and were all born in Darwen, they are listed as; Betsy A. b.1895, Jane Alice b.1899, John E. b.1900 and Eliza b.1901.  

Lawrence was born on 28th February 1906. He was baptised with the surname Taylor in 1913 at the age of 7, also in St. Joseph, Darwen, the son of Jacobi (James) Aspden and Annae (formerly Thompson Taylor), abode 42 Redearth Road, and godfather Kingsford Thomas Taylor (sic). No marriage record has been found for James Aspden and Ann Taylor or Thompson.

Kingsford married Margaret Ann Atkinson in the third quarter of 1915 in Ormskirk Register Office.  

Their daughter Violet was born in Ormskirk district on 22nd December 1915 (the pension card, shows birthdate as 22/2/1915 in error).

He enlisted in Darwen in about November 1915 as Private 31847 in the 2nd Garrison Battalion of The King’s Liverpool Regiment. Formed at Pembroke Dock in November 1915, the battalion moved to Egypt in March 1916, then to Salonika. At some point he was transferred to the 17th Bn. King’s Liverpool Regiment, and subsequently to the 19th Bn.

He was serving with the 19th  Battalion of The King's Liverpool Regiment as Private 31847 when he was killed in action on 09th April 1917, aged 24. 

Details of the action of 09/04/1917:

17^th,  19^th & 20th  Battalion at the  Battle of Arras 09^th April 1917

Everard Wyrall records the events of the day  in Volume 2 of his History of the King's Regiment (Liverpool).

The 89^th Brigade formed up for the attack with the 19^th King's on the right and the 20^th King’s on the left. The 17^th King’s supplied the “mopping up" parties and he 2nd Bedfords were in close support.

It was just after 3pm when the advance began “According to scheduled time the waves advanced in good style and with determination; everyone was cheerful and in the best of spirits”

That advance is described by others as magnificent. From the OP’s the observing officers saw a wonderful sight – long lines of men advancing steadily up a long and gradual slope towards the enemy’ front line. Then suddenly they disappeared. The observers quite pardonably, imagined that the German front line had fallen into the hands of the assaulting troops and that the latter were on the way to the enemy’s support line. Alas something very different had happened. When the advancing troops had reached the summit of the long slope up which they advanced the ground suddenly dipped before the German front line , and when the observing officers thought they  were already in the Bosche lines they had not, as a matter of fact, even reached the wire. What the observers took to be the front line was really the support line; the front line could not be seen  - it lay just behind the crest of that slight rise in the ground.

The attacking waves of the 19^th King’s got within 100 yards of the German wire but were then held up. They were faced by three belts of entanglements, practically untouched by our artillery, and nothing could be done but to dig in or else take shelter in the many shell- shell-with which “No Man’s Land" was pitted. By this time the battalion’s losses were very heavy, and when darkness fell “A" and “B" Companies (about 140 in all) lay in shell-holes, two or three hundred yards north east of St. Martin, but just south of the Cojeul River, and “C" and “D" Companies (140 all ranks) were along the river bank, but on the northern side about 150 yards north east of St. Martin.

The first waves of the 20^th King’ advanced at 3.7pm. At 4pm Lieut Beaumont, commanding “A" Company, reported that he had had some forty casualties in passing through the enemy’s barrage. The next message, timed 4.40pm, stated that the position of the battalion at that period was on a crest in front of the enemy’s wire and about 100 yards from it. On the right the 21^st Division was observed to have penetrated the enemy’s front line, but in the left the right Battalion of the 21^st Brigade (the Wilts) was on the St. Martin- Neuville Vitasse road; the left flank of the 20^th King's was, therefore, “ in the air”.

Urgent messages were sent up from Battalion Headquarters to “push on, keeping in touch with right” But little else could be accomplished until those formidable belts of wire had been cut sufficiently to allow the rapid passage of the attacking troops, headed by their bombers.

At 9:30 that night 89^th Brigade Headquarters ordered both the 19^th and 20^th Battalions to withdraw, the former to the two sunken roads running south east from St. Martin, the latter to north west of St. Martin; the guns had been ordered to cut the enemy’s wire during the night in preparation for another attack during the 10^th April.

Of the 17^th King’s  - the “moppers up" – there is little to relate. There was nothing to “mop up" so that they did not function. Yet they had shared all the perils of the advance, and when  after they had fallen back and at midnight held the following positions, “B", “C", and “D" Companies in and around the sunken road north of Boiry-Becquerelle and “A" Company in trenches west of Henin, they lost 2 officers and 16 other ranks killed, and 3 officers and 48 other ranks wounded.

Kingsford now rests at St Martin Calvaire Cemetery in France.  

The village of St. Martin-sur-Cojeul was taken by the 30th Division on 9 April 1917. It was lost in March 1918 but retaken in the following August. St. Martin Calvaire British Cemetery was named from a calvary which was destroyed during the war. It was begun by units of the 30th Division in April 1917 and used until March 1918. Plot II was made in August and September 1918. The cemetery contains 228 Commonwealth burials of the First World War, five of them unidentified. There are also three German graves within the cemetery. The cemetery was designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens.

His widow Mary Ann, living at 9 Shorrock Fold, Darwen, received his Army effects and a War Gratuity of £6-10s, and was awarded a pension of 18/9d a week for herself and child from October 1917. 

Mary Ann remarried in 1920 to John Joy.  He had enlisted on 11th September 1914 and served in the Lancashire Fusiliers, suffered a gunshot wound to the elbow, and was discharged in June 1919 with a Silver War Badge and a disability pension. A pension card shows an address of 14 Anion Street, Darwen, and 5 Back Bolton Street, Darwen, as guardian of child. 

Another Kingsford Taylor was born in Darwen in 1924, mother’s maiden name Taylor, but sadly died at age 1.  As his mother was about 58 years old by then, perhaps this is the child of one of his sisters, named after her brother, lost in the war. 

His daughter Violet married in 1937 and in 1939 both she and her husband were working in a cotton mill, living at 24 Brunswick Street, Darwen.  Mary Ann, 46, and her disabled husband were living in Flat 12, Clifton Square, Burnley.  Mary Ann died in Darwen in 1973. 

Kingsford is also commemorated in St. Joseph’s Church, Darwen.

We currently have no further information on Kingsford Taylor, If you have or know someone who may be able to add to the history of this soldier, please contact us.