Name
Nigel Newall
Conflict
First World War
Date of Death / Age
12/10/1917
21
Rank, Service Number & Service Details
Second Lieutenant
Welsh Guards
1st Bn.
Awards: Service Medals/Honour Awards
1914 /15 Star, British War and Victory medals
Cemetery/Memorial: Name/Reference/Country
TYNE COT MEMORIAL
Panel 11.
Belgium
Headstone Inscription
Not Researched
UK & Other Memorials
Croxley Green Village Memorial, Croxley Green, All Saints' Church Shrine, Croxley Green, All Saints’ Church Internal Plaque, Croxley Green, Rickmansworth Urban District Memorial, Oxhey Baptist Chapel Memorial
Pre War
The Newalls were an important family in Croxley Green and the surrounding area. They had come to live at Redheath in 1899. William was a member of the stock exchange and kept a substantial establishment (a governess and nine household servants in 1911). They had two other sons, Keith in the navy and Leslie in the army, and two daughters, Doreen and Gwynneth. William was born in Gateshead, County Durham, the son of a famous Scottish engineer, industrialist and amateur astronomer, Robert Newall.
Nigel was the youngest of son of William and Lilian Lucy (Holloway) Newall's three sons. His elder brother Leslie was killed in action in 1915. Nigel was born in London on 18 July 1896, baptised on 23 August 1896 and attended Eton College where he was a member of the Officers’ Training Corps.
The loss of two sons affected the Newall family deeply. William Newall applied to All Saints’ for permission to erect a memorial to Leslie and Nigel. The church agreed and the plaque is one of the few personal memorials inside All Saints’ church.
Recorded as enlisting in London.
Wartime Service
Nigel Newall volunteered immediately war was declared, He had joined the Honourable Artillery Company as 1509, Private, and embarked for the Western Front on 18 September 1914. In the spring of 1915 he was taken ill with jaundice and treated in the 7 Field Ambulance Rest Station at Westoutee. He was discharged to duty on 21 April 1915.
Nigel Newall was commissioned as Second Lieutenant into the 1st Welsh Guards on 7 May 1915. He was wounded in both legs by a shell at Laventie on 20 January 1916 and invalided home on 10 February 1916 on the hospital ship St. Patrick after being treated in the 2nd Red Cross Hospital at Rouen. He was given 4 month’s leave and then put on light duties until 16 August 1916. In 1917 the 1st Welsh Guards were involved in the Third Battle of Ypres (Passchendaele).
By October, the conditions the troops had to contend with were appalling. Wet weather had turned the battlefield into a morass of deep mud and pools of stagnant water with corpses everywhere. Nigel was killed by a sniper in the front-line trenches south-west of Houthulst Forest on 12 October 1917, aged 21. At 5.25am a fresh attempt had been made to get forward, the final objective being the Passchendaele Heights. According to the memorial in All Saints’ church, Nigel was buried on the battlefield close to Houthulst Forest, near Louvois Farm. However, after the war had ended, his grave was never found and he is now remembered on the Tyne Cot memorial to the missing alongside almost 35,000 others who lost their lives in the battles of the Ypres salient.
Additional Information
Brother of 2nd Lieutenant Leslie Newall who was killed in action on 2 Sep 1915 and who is also commemorated on this memorial.
Acknowledgments
Malcolm Lennox, Brian Thomson
