Pte 202833 Louis Donelan

The 1901 Census finds his parents, with three children, living at 22 Salisbury Street, Everton. His father, 36, is an electric cable layer, his mother is 33, Kathleen is 7, John 6, and Louis is 4.  Also living with them are his widowed grandfather Patrick Donelan 68, and uncle Andrew Donelan, 35, a dock labourer.

 

The 1911 Census finds the family have moved and are now at 39 Salisbury Street, Everton with seven children. His father John is 46, employed in the rubber works, his mother is 43. His parents advise that they have been married for 18 years and have had seven children all of whom have survived and are listed in the household; Kathleen is 17, a bookbinder, John is 16, a paper warehouse boy, Louis is 14, a book printer’s apprentice. Phillip, 8, and Josephine, 6, are at school, Stephen is 3, and Winifred 4 months old.  Also in the household is his uncle Andrew, 44, a dock labourer, and a boarder, Mary Hurley, 71.

Louis enlisted in Liverpool joining the 18th Battalion of The King's Liverpool Regiment as Private 202833. The amount of the War Gratuity suggests that he enlisted in early 1917.

He had transferred and was serving in the 19^th Battalion when he died of wounds on the 16^th May 1918, aged 21.

His death was reported in the Nottingham and Midland Catholic News on 01st June 1918:

Pte. Louis Donelan, formerly a collector for St Francis Xavier's Church, Liverpool has died from wounds received in action.  

He now rests at Esquelbecq Military Cemetery, France.

The cemetery was opened in April 1918 during the early stages of the German offensive in Flanders, when the 2nd Canadian and 3rd Australian Casualty Clearing Stations came to Esquelbecq. It was closed in September 1918, although one French grave was added in 1919 and one British soldier from 1916 was added later from an isolated site.

The cemetery was used again during the Second World War, mainly for the burial of those killed during the German advance of May 1940 and the withdrawal of the British Expeditionary Force to Dunkirk.

Esquelbecq Military Cemetery contains 578 Commonwealth burials of the First World War and 47 from the Second World War. There are also 11 French and German burials.

The cemetery was designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens.

His father, John Joseph, died in April 1917, aged 52, so his mother had to suffer the loss of her son and husband within weeks.

 

His mother received his Army effects, including a War Gratuity of £4-10s.  It is not clear from the pension card in the name of his mother (and later his sister Kathleen), at 39 Salisbury Street, Everton, that a pension was awarded.

 

His older brother John Patrick served from October 1916 in the Monmouths and the Royal Warwickshire Regiment and was discharged in June 1918 with a disability pension.

 

His mother died in 1929, aged 61.

 

Louis is commemorated on the following Memorials:

Liverpool’s Hall of Remembrance, Panel 7 Left