RIFLEMAN JOSEPH CHAMBERS
ROYAL IRISH RIFLES
23RD DECEMBER 1916 AGE 26
BURIED: BAILLEUL COMMUNAL CEMETERY EXTENSION NORD, FRANCE
This is the kind of sentimental inscription that Sir Frederick Kenyon was probably trying to avoid when he initially announced that the War Graves Commission would reserve the right to censor inscriptions since, in his mind, it was "clearly undesirable to allow free scope for the effusions of the mortuary mason, the sentimental versifier, or the crank". This is definitely the work of a 'sentimental versifier' and regularly appeared in the 'In Memoriam' columns of local newspapers, not just in relation to war-related deaths either.
There were two versions:
We think of you in silence,
No eyes may see us weep;
But treasured in our aching hearts
Your memory still we keep.
This second version is extracted from a longer verse:
We think of you in silence,
No eyes may see us weep,
But many silent tears are shed
When others are asleep.
It was Joseph Chambers' father who confirmed the inscription. From the details on the 1911 Irish Census form we know that his mother could read but not write - and that she'd had six children two of whom had died. Chambers, a farm servant in Derryaghy, County Antrim, served with the 1st Battalion the Royal Irish Rifles and died of wounds in a Casualty Clearing Station at Bailleul two days before Christmas 1916.