John TWEDDLE, LANCE CORPORAL 12227
* Born: 4Q1887 at Coatham Mundeville
* Son of: Thomas and Elizabeth Tweddle
* Local Address: Coatham Mundeville
* Father's Occupation: Machine Riveter (1901 as a Tender Fitter, Engine Works)
* Siblings: Four brothers, four sisters, position in family 3
* Pre-War Occupation: Platelayer/Stone Ballaster, North Eastern Railway
* Enlisted: Darlington
* Regiment: 91st Field Company, Royal Engineers
* Died: Killed in Action Friday 28 April 1916
* Age: 28
* Buried: La Chaudiere Military Cemetery, Vimy, France
John Tweddle was born in 1888 at Coatham Mundeville, Co Durham. He was the son of Thomas and Elizabeth Ann Tweddle, both from Coatham Mundeville. Thomas Tweddle had married Elizabeth Anne Biglin in 1883. They had nine children, two of whom had died by the time of the 1911 census. Thomas Tweddle was described as a machine riveter.
At the time of the 1911 census John Tweddle lived with his uncle (his mother’s younger brother) and aunt, Robert Henry and Emma Jane Biglin, at 7 The Crossings, East Howle, Ferryhill Station. John, then aged 23 was a platelayer on the North Eastern Railway, as was his uncle Robert Biglin. The notice of his death in the local newspaper in 1916, described him, prior to enlisting in 1914, as employed in the Engineer’s Department at Aycliffe as first leadingman in the stone ballasting gang.
John Tweddle’s service record does not exist so we know little about his Army career. However, we do know from the above newspaper article thT he enlisted at Darlington on 15 September 1914, in the 8th Battalion, The Border Regiment.
8/Border had been formed at Carlisle in September 1914 as part of Lord Kitchener’s Third New Army and came under orders of 75th Brigade in 25th Division. In November 1914 the men were billeted in Boscombe, Hampshire and moved to nearby Romsey in May 1915. The battalion landed at Boulogne on 27 September 1915. Over the winter of 2015-16 the battalion was in the Ypres-Armentières region and in March 2016 moved south towards Arras. The 25th Division of which 8/Border were part saw action in 1916 on Vimy Ridge. Vimy Ridge, which the German Army had occupied since September 1914, ran almost 12km north-east of Arras. The French Tenth Army had responded by digging its own system of trenches at Arras which were taken over by the British Army in March 1916.
On 21 April, the Battalion War Diary records that the battalion relieved 6/South Staffordshires in the trenches north of Neuville-Saint-Vaast. In the following days the men were involved in repairing and draining the trenches of water. On 25 April at 23.15 the advanced posts were bombed, a sergeant was killed and five ORs wounded, two of them seriously.
On 27 April the battalion was relieved during the night by 11/Cheshires.
On 28 April, the day that John Tweddle lost his life, the diary records:
One of the three men who died was Lance Corporal John Tweddle.
All three were buried at La Chaudière Military Cemetery, Vimy.
After the war, John Tweddle was commemorated on a Memorial Plaque plaque in the Church of St Mary Magdalene, Coatham Mundeville (the plaque is now mounted in the Village Hall) and on the Brass Memorial Plaque in St Andrew’s Church, Haughton-le-Skerne.
John's younger brother George also served in WW1 with the Labour Corps and survived the war.