SERJEANT FRED IFOULD, MM
ROYAL FIELD ARTILLERY
23RD OCTOBER 1917 AGE 26
BURIED: BUFFS ROAD CEMETERY, YPRES, BELGIUM
Fred Ifould's inscription is a contraction from the last verse of John Henry Newman's very popular hymn 'Lead Kindly Light'. The verse itself reads:
So long thy power hath blest me, sure it still will lead me on,
O'er moor and fen, o'er crag and torrent, till the night is gone,
And with the morn those angel faces smile,
Which I have loved long since and lost awhile.
Ifould was a regular soldier. In the 1911 census he was serving with E Battery, Royal Field Artillery and living in Artillery Barracks, Chapeltown Road, Leeds. He and his brother, Harry, were both serving with the same battery and had consecutive army numbers indicating that they had joined up together. One of them, and I can't tell which, was a member of the gun crew that at 9.30 am on 22 August 1914 fired the first artillery round of the First World War on the Western Front. I have a suspicion that it was Harry Ifould because the crew list says Gunner Ifould and I think Fred Ifould was a bombardier by the outbreak of war.
Harry Ifould survived the war but Fred, now serving with D Battery 155th Brigade, was killed in action on the 23 October 1917, just before the opening day of the 2nd Battle of Passchendaele.