Soldier Record

An Uncle I never knew.

John Mallinson was a foundry worker in Manchester, but volunteered for military service, and enlisted into the R.A.M.C, as a Medical Orderly, and was posted to a Field Ambulance Unit in Egypt. However after the disastrous losses on the Western Front in early 1918, it was decided that more able-bodied men were required for the infantry, and he was drafted in the 1st/7th Btn. Cameronians. The Regt. was then posted to the western front in March 1918, in a place near Arras, called Mont St. Eloi They were clad in tropical uniform at this time! An entry in the War Diary states that the troops were suffering badly from the cold! Whether he saw action, I do not know, but sometime in May he became sick and was admitted to hospital near Aubigny en Artois, where he succumbed to his illness and died on May 30th 1918. He is buried in the Military Section of the graveyard in Aubigny. I have visited the grave a number of times, but the first time I was overcome with grief for a man I had never met.