Current Information:

Age-21

"Ovenden", Kingswood Road, Merton

Bedford House Cemetery, Belgium

On 31st March, 1915, 1915, the 9th London battalion of 13 Brigade, 5th Division marched from Ouderdom to Ypres where two companies moved into trenches while the other two went into billets at the cavalry barracks. They remained here, with the battalions changing places on 5th April, until they were relieved on 9th April and returned to Ouderdom. Harold Eggleton died from wounds on 2nd April but the battalion diary provides no further information concerning his death. The attrition rate among British soldiers on the Western Front was on average 300 each day and 60% of these were as a result of shellfire. When not involved in an actual battle it was either shell fire or a sniper’s bullet that caused most deaths and injuries.