A FUNDRAISER has been launched to restore a World War One memorial to a Birkenhead soldier.
Captain Houston Stewart Hamilton Wallace was born in Birkenhead in 1893 and was the only child of William Hamilton and Emily Constance (nee Heap), of the Nook, Shrewsbury Road, Birkenhead.
Houston gained a commission into the 10th battalion Worcestershire Regiment and went to France on August 1, 1915.
He was killed in action on July 22, 1916, after trying to capture a German machine gun post in the village of Bazentin-le-Petit in France.
Houston’s aunt Beatrice was listed as his next of kin after both his parents had passed away. After the war Beatrice searched for the location of Houston’s burial, sadly the location was lost.
However, she had received a letter from his CO, in which he stated that Houston was buried near a Calvary at Bazentin.
She identified the location of where the Calvary had been and had a replacement made and dedicated it to Houston.
As Houston has no known grave he is named on Thiepval Memorial.
In the early 1920s the then IWGC took care of the memorial on an agreed 20-year plan where Beatrice paid them to maintain it.
In February 1940, Beatrice died aged 83, and after the war care of the memorial was discontinued.
In the early 1990s, the Western Front Association (WFA) started a project to identify private memorials. They asked historian Paul Reed to help and he found the stone cairn base location and then eventually after talking to local villagers found the original wooden Calvary in a garage in the village.
In 1994 with support from the WFA the memorial was restored and rededicated.
However, over the last 29 years it has once again fallen into disrepair.
During the past couple of months the land in front of the memorial has been cleared.
In October a closer inspection and survey was carried out.
The plan for restoration is to clear and level the ground in front of the memorial, construct steps up to it, and have a stone-levelled area with a border and an information board about Captain Houston and the fighting that took place in 1916.
The board will be written in English, French and German.
A fundraising page has been set up to raise money for the restoration work and has so far raised more than £2,000 towards it’s £5,500 target. To find out more click here.
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