Menu
Logan Jaggar Grace was born in Ossett on the 16th April 1894 and baptised at Ossett Holy Trinity Church on 19th August 1894. He was the elder son of four children born to miner Albert Edward Grace and his wife Mary Alice (nee Jaggar) who married in Ossett Holy Trinity Church on the 22nd November 1890.
By 1901, Albert and Mary Alice and their four children, including Logan, were living at Westfield Street, Ossett and Albert was working as a banksman in the local pit. In 1904, at the age of 37, Logan’s father, Albert died leaving Mary Alice with four children, all under the age of 11 years.
Logan was 18 in 1911 and following the death of his father in 1904, he was the most senior male in the family’s two-roomed home at Audsley’s Yard, Healey Road, Ossett. Logan was working as a leather carrier with a local athletic goods manufacturer. His mother and two sisters worked in local mills and his 10 year-old brother was still at school.
On the 20th September 1913, Logan, now aged 19, married 19 year old spinster Eliza Riley in her parish Church of St Matthews at West Town, Dewsbury. By this time he was working as a football maker. In early 1914 their first child, Ivy, was born and in early 1916 a second child, George, was born to the couple, but sadly he died, at, or shortly after, his birth. Just before he enlisted, Logan was working as a scourer for Mark Oldroyd and Sons at Queen’s Mill, Savile Town. Eliza and her daughter moved to 165, Whiteheads Buildings, Westtown, Dewsbury around the end of 1916.
Logan’s army service record has not survived, but it is known that he enlisted at Dewsbury on 10th May 1915and joined the 3rd/4th KOYLI before transferring to 1/4 (Hallamshire) (T.F.) Battalion of the York and Lancaster Regiment with regimental service number 4506.
1/4th (Hallamshire) Battalion was formed in August 1914 at Sheffield as part of the 3rd West Riding Brigade, West Riding Division. They moved on mobilisation to Doncaster and again in November 1914 to Gainsborough, going on in February 1915 to York. On the 14th April 1915 the battalion landed at Boulogne. On the 15th May 1915, the formation became 148th Brigade in the 49th (West Riding) Division.
Logan embarked for France on 26th June 1916 and was killed in action by an enemy shellburst whilst working in a trench on 15th February 1917 near Grosville and Bellacourt, France. On that day 1/4 (Hallamshire) Battalion, York and Lancaster Regiment relieved 1/4 KOYLI in the trenches on the front line at Grosville. Logan was posthumously awarded the British and Victory medals.
In his obituary published in the Dewsbury Reporter on 3rd March 1917, his wife stated that on three occasions he had been expecting to be honourably discharged because of poor eyesight which necessitated him having to wear glasses most of the time, but he had heard one of the Army doctors say; “it is a shame to discharge a big, fine fellow like him”.
There is no record of Logan’s mother being remarried. Logan’s wife, Eliza was remarried in 1930 to widower George Fotherby. They appear not to have had children.
Until 2018 Logan Jaggar Grace was not remembered on any Ossett Memorial or Roll of Honour even though he and his family continued to live in the town at least until 1911. He was also baptised at Ossett Holy Trinity Church and his parents married there. It may have been the case that Logan left Ossett to live in West Town Dewsbury shortly after his marriage in 1913. He is remembered in this 2014 biography and Roll of Honour because the Commonwealth War Graves Commission and/or the “U.K. Soldiers who Died in the Great War 1914-1918” listing records him as born or residing in Ossett.
He is commemorated on the Dewsbury Cenotaph in Crow Nest Park and in the Dewsbury Roll of Honour kept in Dewsbury Central Library. On 11th November 2018 Logan J. Grace was remembered as an Ossett Fallen at the Ossett War Memorial when schoolchildren unveiled his engraved name.
Private Logan Jaggar Grace, son of William and Mary Alice Grace, of Ossett, Yorkshire; husband of Eliza Grace, of 165, Whitehead Buildings, Huddersfield Rd., West Town, Dewsbury, died aged 23 years on the 15th February 1917. He is buried at grave reference I.K.4. at the Bellacourt Military Cemetery Riviere,1 Pas de Calais, France. Bellacourt is a village in the commune of Riviere, in the Department of the Pas-de-Calais, 10 kilometres south-west of Arras.
The cemetery was begun by French troops in October 1914, and carried on by the 46th (North Midland), 55th (West Lancashire), 58th (London), 49th (West Riding) and other Divisions, and later by the Canadian Corps, from February 1916, to September 1918; and the French plot was increased in 1923 by concentrations from other cemeteries. The 16 American graves of July and August, 1918 (all but one of which belonged to the 320th Regiment) have been removed to another place of burial.
There are 432 Commonwealth burials of the 1914-18 war commemorated in this site, 1 being unidentified. There are also 117 French burials here.
The Cemetery covers an area of 3,582 square metres and is enclosed by a rubble wall.
We are indebted to the Dewsbury Sacrifices – WWI Project for additional research and the photograph of Logan reproduced in this February 2021 update.
References:
