Tuesday 16th July 2024  

Quorn WW1 Roll of Honour - Daniel and William Moore

Died 13th May 1915, aged 25 and 23
Battle of Frezenberg, Second Battle of Ypres, Belgium

The Moore family
The Moore family tragically lost three sons in WW1. They were aged between 23 and 25.

Daniel (left on the photograph below) and William (known as Billy) were brothers, and their parents, William and Ann, brought up their family of seven children at 34 Station Road in Quorn. Dan, Billy and their other brothers all went to Rawlins Grammar School.

Joining up
The boys had both been members of the Soar Valley Territorials before the war, as were several of their friends in Quorn, and as such, when war broke out, they immediately joined the Leicestershire Yeomanry. Dan and Billy were well thought of, in both the village, and by their army comrades. Billy had received a flesh wound to his head early in 1915, but had written cheerful letters home from hospital, saying it was healing well. Dan was remembered by his fellow soldiers as being:
“…the life and soul of the troop, who had kept everyone’s spirits up during the worst times in the trenches.”

A brother’s loyalty
The brothers were both involved in the Battle of Frezenberg, part of the second battle of Ypres, in Belgium on 13th May 1915, and were two of the seven young men from Quorn who died on that terrible day.

When they arrived at the frontline, Billy was detailed for the trenches, but Dan was assigned as a ‘pack leader’ to take the horses back out of the firing line. However, when Dan discovered that his younger brother was to remain in the trenches, he swapped places with a Private Metcalf, so that he could stay with Billy. This was a decision that cost him his life.

After the battle, Dan’s body was identified from his identification disc, but Billy was reported as missing, and his death was not finally confirmed until early in 1916.

Laying Billy to rest
In 1927, the body of a Leicestershire Yeomanry soldier was found in the Frezenberg area, over which laid the remains of a leather bandolier (cross body sash) of ammunition (see picture below). On the back of the bandolier was the service number of a Private P Metcalfe. After investigations it transpired that Private Metcalfe had survived the war and was living in Thorpe Acre, in Loughborough. The Commander of the Regiment wrote to him early in 1928, and Mr Metcalfe explained that he was supposed to be going into the trenches, but that Dan Moore swapped duties with him, and that as a result Dan had taken his (Private Metcalfe’s) spare bandolier.

The Imperial War Graves Commission concluded that because a man would have two bandoliers, but would only wear one at once, Dan and Billy had put their second bandoliers between them on the floor of the trench as they stood next to each other. These had again become mixed up, and Billy later picked up the wrong one. It was therefore concluded beyond any reasonable doubt that the body belonged to Billy Moore, and he was finally laid to rest in a named grave, in Oosttaverne Wood Cemetery, two miles away from his elder brother.

See also Artefact 2292 for more information about the Moore family and the loss of their brother Hubert Mason Moore.

Photographs below:
1) Dan (left) and Billy Moore. This photograph is very moving, especially when you realise that, like so many others, they should have had all their lives ahead of them, and how in a different time they would have grown up, married, had children and had long lives. Instead they died aged 23 and 25.

2) A silver memorial vase that the family had made in 1919. It is engraved with the names and dates of death of all three brothers.

3) 34 Station Road (on the left with the white door), where the Moore brothers grew up. A previous resident of Station Road thought they lived at no 36 (with the green door), but census records, tax records and electoral rolls all point to it being no 34.

4) An illustration of an ammunition bandolier, similar to those which would have been worn by Dan and Billie.

Submitted on: 2020-01-12 Submitted by: Sue Templeman Artefact ID: 2293 Artefact URL: www.quornmuseum.com/display.php?id=2293