GUNNER JAMES YOXALL TWAMLEY
ROYAL FIELD ARTILLERY
23RD DECEMBER 1915 AGE 22
BURIED: LANCASHIRE LANDING CEMETERY, TURKEY
James Twamley died of wounds on Gallipoli three days after the last Allied troops had been evacuated from Suvla and Anzac, and five days before the decision was taken to evacuate Helles, which is where Twamley died. A volunteer, he had been on active service for two months, since he had arrived in the Balkan theatre of war on 26 October.
Twamley was one of the fifteen children of Charles Twamley, a carpenter, and his wife Alice of Yoxall, Staffordshire. At the time of the 1911 census all the children were still alive: the eldest, Edith, 27 and the youngest, Ben, one.
Alice Twamley chose her son's inscription. It is proud, patriotic and original. I can't find any source for her poetic description of James as, 'the son of a thousand years', a son in a million.
Alice also had to choose another son's inscription. One of James' older brothers, John Brightland Twamley, went to Canada where he worked as a carpenter. He enlisted in the 13th Battalion Canadian Infantry on 13 September 1914, sailed for overseas on 3 October 1914 and was killed in action on 7 March 1915. Unlike the very original inscription she chose for James, John's inscription was one of the most popular:
'Until the day breaks and the shadows flee away'.