Serjeant 33337 Alexander Rutherford

• Age: 32
• From: Liverpool
• Regiment: Border Regiment
• Died on Sunday 8th July 1917
• Commemorated at: Mory Abbey Mc
  Panel Ref: II.J.6

Alexander Rutherford was born in Liverpool in February 1885, the youngest surviving son of John Rutherford and his wife Grace Hannah (née Tamlin), who married in 1874.  His father was a widower, born in Ireland in about 1823, and his mother was born in Dartmouth, Devon, in 1844.  They had six children:  Alexander had older siblings John, Mary, Samuel, and Edward (who died at age 4 in 1887), and a younger brother Robert (who died at age 1).

Alexander was baptised in St. James, Toxteth Park, on 11th March 1885, his parents living in court housing and his father’s occupation given as mariner.

In 1891 his parents, with three sons, are living at 20 Hyslop Street, Toxteth. His father is 67, no occupation listed.  Alexander is 6.

His father died in 1898 at the age of 74 when Alexander was 12 or 13 years old. 

The 1901 census finds him, age 16, employed as a page and resident in the Grand Hotel, Lime Street, Liverpool.  His widowed mother, 57, is living at Drysdale Street, Toxteth Park with three of his siblings, John, 25, Mary, 23, and Samuel, 20.

When he was 23, he married Sarah Mary Hartley Parle (called May) in Toxteth Park Registry Office on 22nd August 1908.  May was Catholic, and Alexander’s service record shows his religion as “none”.  Their first daughter Joyce was born on 11th October 1909. 

In 1911 the young family is living at 9 Ritson Street, Liverpool.  Alexander is 26, an oil mill labourer, Sarah is 22 and daughter Joyce is 1 year old.   His mother, 67, is living with a  widowed daughter-in-law and grandchildren in Grafton Street, working as a shopkeeper/general dealer.

Another daughter, Nora, was born on 29th February 1912, followed by Joan on 19th November 1914. 

Alexander volunteered, enlisting in Liverpool on 8th January 1915, as Private 24395, joining the 19th Battalion of The King’s Liverpool Regiment, giving his age as 29 years and 11 months and his occupation as stoker (no crew lists have been found).  He is described as being 5’ 4 and a quarter inches tall, weighing 126 lbs.  He gives his address as 107 Ashbridge Street, Lodge Lane, and his next of kin as his wife, Sarah Mary Hartley Rutherford. His service record survives and shows -  

29/4/1915 posted Brigade Depot

03/8/1915 appointed paid L/Cpl

18/8/1915 posted to the 22nd (Reserve) Bn K.L.R.

01/9/1916 transferred to T.B. 68 

06/9/1915 promoted to Corporal

08/3/1916 promoted to L/Sgt

12/5/1916 promoted to Sergeant 

Whilst at Formby on 11/7/1916, Alexander was severely reprimanded for “irregular conduct being in the company of a Private soldier wearing Sergeant’s chevrons”. 

16/9/1916 admitted to hospital, injury (eyes)

18/9/1916 discharged from hospital 

Whilst at Ripon, on 07/12/1916, he was again reprimanded for neglect of duty. 

28/12/1916 Alexander transferred to 2nd Border Regiment as Private 33337 and on the same day, he arrived in France.

Barely two weeks after he embarked for France, his daughter Margaret was born, on 10th January 1917. As his service record shows no leave to the U.K., it is likely that Alexander never met his youngest daughter.

In 1916 the 2nd Border Regiment were in action at the Somme at Mametz, Bazentin, the attacks on High Wood and Delville Wood, and at Guillemont, as well as operations on the Ancre.  In 1917 they took part in the German retreat to the Hindenburg Line, and operations around Bullecourt, at Arras. 

Alexander was killed in action on 8th July 1917, and laid to rest in Mory Abbey Military Cemetery (between Arras and Bapaume) where his headstone bears the epitaph:

"ONE OF THE BEST. MAY AND CHILDREN".  

Mory village was occupied by Commonwealth troops in the middle of March 1917. It was lost after obstinate defence by the 40th and 34th Division a year later and recaptured towards the end of the following August, after severe fighting, by the 62nd (West Riding) and Guard Divisions. The German burials in a plot on the west side of the cemetery were made by German troops in March-August 1918, or by Commonwealth troops in September 1918. The Commonwealth plots were begun at the end of March 1917 and carried on by fighting units until March 1918, and again in August and September 1918, as far as and including Plot III. The graves in Plots IV and V - including many of the Guards Division, and chiefly of 1918 - were added after the Armistice from the battlefields between St. Leger and Bapaume.

Mory Abbey Military Cemetery contains 619 Commonwealth burials of the First World War. 101 of the burials are unidentified, but there is a special memorial to one casualty known to be buried among them. The cemetery also contains 230 German burials.

Although his CWGC headstone shows his age as 33, based on birth and census records, Alexander would have been 32 years old, i.e., in his 33rd year. 

He was reported Killed in the Liverpool Daily Post on 10th August and the Weekly Casualty List on 14th August 1917. 

His daughters were 7, 5, 2, and six months old when Alexander was killed.  Whilst her husband was away, his wife, living at 5 Doric Road, was paid a Separation Allowance plus Pay Allotment of £1-19-4d a week until January 1918, after which she received a pension of £1-11-3d a week for herself and four children. His widow, May, received Alexander’s Army effects and a War Gratuity of £14-10s. 

May placed an In Memoriam notice on the first anniversary of his death:  

“In loving memory of my dear husband, Sergt. Alexander Rutherford, killed in action, July 8, 1917.  Sadly missed by his sorrowing wife and four little girls, Joyce, Nora, Joan, Margaret.  5 Doric Road, Stoneycroft.”

His mother died in 1923, aged 78. 

May never remarried.  In 1939, aged 51 she is living with her four daughters at 131 Mill Lane, Liverpool. May and Joyce served as voluntary telephonists during the war, and Nora and Joan volunteered at the Belmont Road first aid post. 

May died in 1970, aged 82.  His daughters all married, had a family, and lived into the 21st century.   

Alexander is commemorated on the following memorials - 

St. Anne’s, Stanley

St. Paul’s, Stoneycroft

Liverpool’s Hall of Remembrance, Panel 44 Right (19th K.L.R.).

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