PRIVATE ELLIS HUMPHREY EVANS
ROYAL WELSH FUSILIERS
31ST JULY 1917 AGE 30
BURIED: ARTILLERY WOOD CEMETERY, BOEZINGE, BELGIUM
Ellis Humphrey Evans was reluctant to be a soldier. Not only was he a Welsh non-conformist who remained true to its firm pacifist beliefs, but he was a shepherd on his father's farm and therefore involved in work of national importance - producing food for the nation. However, with the introduction of conscription in January 1916 either he or his brother had to join up and Ellis decided that as the elder brother it should be him.
In June 1917 he joined the 15th Battalion the Royal Welsh Fusiliers in France and at the end of July was killed in the Battle of Pilkhem Ridge. His inscription - Y prifardd Hedd Wyn - reveals him to be the Chief Bard Hedd Wyn whose poem, Yr Arwr (The Hero), written whilst he was in the army, led to him being posthumously awarded the bardic chair at the National Eisteddfod.
In 1923 his home town of Trawsfynydd in Merionydd erected a statue to his memory showing the poet as a shepherd not as a soldier. Below it is a bronze plaque inscribed with the details of his death and below that is an 'englyn', a short piece of verse, which Evans wrote in memory of a friend killed in action in 1916:
Ei aberth nid a heibio- ei wyneb
Annwyl nid a'n ango
Er i'r Almaen ystaenio
Ei dwrn dur yn ei waed o
This translates as: "His sacrifice and his dear face will not be forgotten even though Germany has stained her fist of steel in his blood". The first two lines of this inscription can be found on the graves of more than one Welsh soldier, including Gunner Evan Evans of the Royal Garrison Artillery, who died on the same day as Ellis Humphrey Evans and is buried in Dickebusch New Military Cemetery and Extension.