LIEUTENANT WALTER GEORGE FREDERIC WELCH
ROYAL FIELD ARTILLERY
30TH OCTOBER 1914 AGE 24
BURIED: RAMPARTS CEMETERY, LILLE GATE, YPRES, BELGIUM
This was not Lieutenant Welch's original inscription. He was killed in Herenthage Wood, between Gheluvelt and Hollebeke, and was buried where he fell. After the war, his father bought a small plot of land - 138' x 70' - surrounding his grave and put up a private memorial - something the War Graves Commission always tried very hard to stop. A seven-foot-high Celtic cross, the inscription read:
This cross is set up
In ever loving memory
To mark the place where
On the evening of October 30th 1914
During the First Battle of Ypres
Lieutenant Walter George Frederic Welch
17th Battery Royal Field Artillery
Fell in action aged 24
He was buried by his brother officers & men
Near this spot
"Alongside the guns he had fought.
A keen and good soldier" O.C.
On 9 November 1956 Walter Welch's body was exhumed and reburied in Ypres Ramparts Cemetery, Lille Gate. His father had died in 1939 and I am assuming that the family decided it would be better if the Commission now looked after his grave.