Private 16023, Hugh Thomas Davies, 10th Battalion, 76th Brigade, 3rd Division. Died of Wounds, 26 February 1916, aged 21. Buried Plot IV. D. 13A. Lijssenthoek Military Cemetery, Belgium. Commemorated on the Abergele War Memorial and Abergele Town Memorial. The inscription on his headstone reads: Death Divides but a Loving Memory Ever Clings, Mother & Father.

Son of John and Matilda Davies, of 15, Mount Pleasant, Abergele. Born Abergele, April 1894, enlisted Colwyn Bay. Arrived in France 27 September 1915. The family was living at Nelson Terrace in 1911, at Mill House c.1917, and at 15, Mount Pleasant, towards the end of the war and immediately afterwards. In 1911 the family had consisted of 7 children, and the oldest three boys all served. Based on the 1911 Census their details were: Hugh Thomas, aged 16 and a Fishmonger’s Errand Boy, Robert Edward aged 14 and a Telegraph Messenger, and John Christopher, aged 12 and at school. A younger brother, David William, aged 10 in 1911, probably narrowly escaped conscription towards the end of the war.

Hugh was badly wounded in the same artillery barrage on 17 February 1916 that fatally wounded John Robert Davies (click here for further details of what was happening at the time). Both Hugh and John lie buried in the same grave at Lijssenthoek Military Cemetery in Poperinge, about 7 miles west of Ypres