WOOLDRIDGE, Wallace E

Wallace Wooldridge was born on the 14th February 1890 and was the son of Albert and Emma Wooldridge of Lye. He attended Old Swinford Hospital in Stourbridge from 1900 and was apprenticed in 1904 to Hill and Son, Engineers, of Stambermill. He was living in 1914 at 119 Birmingham Street with his wife and two children. He enlisted in the Royal Field Artillery and in September 1917 joined C Battery, 83rd Brigade, on the Western Front for the Third Battle of Ypres. In December they moved north of Ypres to the Houthoulst Forest, where even in the depth and cold of winter there was regular counter-battery shelling. Gunner Wallace Wooldridge was seriously wounded in an explosion and taken to Canada Farm near Ypres which was used as an Advanced Dressing Station. A letter from an officer to his wife stated that he had been hit in the back by a piece of shell on the 9th January 1918. It also stated that he would be buried the next day and a cross placed on his grave. He was 27 years of age and is buried at Canada Farm Cemetery, Belgium (III H 45). He is commemorated on the Lye and Wollescote, Lye church and Old Swinford Hospital Memorials.