The following appeared under the above headline in the ‘Derbyshire Times’ of 1 September 1917: “…..Lance Corporal Geoffrey Townsend, aged 23, son of Mr and Mrs Joseph Townsend, who, for many years lived at Bretton Clough, afterwards at Foolow [near Buxton, Derbyshire], and lately at Coplow Dale Farm, Hazlebadge, Bradwell [near Buxton], has been on active service in France for one year, in the K.O.Y.L.I.. Before joining up he was a gardener at Sheffield. ….. For something like 200 years there have been at Bretton Clough, members of the Townsend family, all being farmers.”

Geoffrey Townsend’s Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC) entry confirms that he was the: “son of Joseph and Fanny Townsend, of Coplow Dale, Tideswell, Buxton.” Geoffrey (originally spelt Jeffery) was born at Bretton Clough, near Buxton, Derbyshire in 1894. His parents were Joseph Townsend (born Bretton Clough 1857) and Fanny Townsend nee Fearn (born Beeley, near Matlock, Derbyshire 1862). They had married at the church of St Anne, Beeley in 1882.

The 1901 census located the 6-year-old Geoffrey at home with his family and siblings at Oakes Farm, Highlow near Hathersage, Derbyshire, where his father was the Farmer. His siblings were: Joseph (born 1883); Jane (1886); Lottie (1891); Maurice (1892)*; Ellis (1896)*; Rachael (1898); and Lucy (1901).

Of the above siblings, Maurice served as 40538 Private Maurice Townsend of the 6th Battalion Northamptonshire Regiment. He died in the war on 10 August 1917 aged 25. Ellis served as a Private with the Sherwood Foresters (the Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire Regiment (service No. 21411), and then the Connaught Rangers (service No. 6588). Ellis survived the war but the report from the ‘Derbyshire Times’ of 1 September 1917 quoted from above, went on to say that: “….Pte. Ellis Townsend (21), the Connaught Rangers, who was wounded in Mesopotamia, was an inmate of the hospital at Amarah [Iraq] on August 3rd. This is the third time that Ellis has been wounded. He joined up in August 1914. He was first wounded in the Dardanelles [Turkey] in July 1915, and again in France in May 1916”.

Two ‘British Red Cross Enquiry List, Wounded & Missing’, entries show that enquiries were made by the Red Cross as to whether Geoffrey Townsend had been taken prisoner of war by German forces. Both received a negative in response.  British Army authorities, probably after a court of inquiry calling witnesses, ultimately ruled that he had in fact gone missing and should be presumed dead.

His CWGC entry confirms that Geoffrey was recorded as having died, aged 24, on 26 April 1918 and that his name is engraved on the Tyne Cot Memorial, West-Vlaanderen Region, Belgium “….which is located 9 kilometres north east of Ieper [formerly Ypres] town centre”. One of four memorials for the missing presumed dead from the Ypres Salient.