The War Grave of John George Brew, 1876-1918

The war grave of Major John George Brew, 9th Battalion (North Irish Horse), Royal Irish Fusiliers, 108th Brigade, 36th Ulster Division, who died on 6 April 1918, aged 41, is located in Roye New British Cemetery, in Roye, on the Somme in France (Grave IV, D9). He was the son of John George and Jane Isabella Brew (both deceased), husband of Annie Moffat Brew, of "Rathlin", Portadown, Ireland, and the father of Marion and Kenneth.

Roye was in German hands from the 30th August, 1914, until the French retook it on 17 March 1917. On the 26 March 1918, the Germans recaptured it; but the following 26 August they evacuated the town, which was entered on the 27 by the French First Army.

Roye Old British Cemetery was 1.6 kilometres south of the town. It was made in March 1918, by the 53rd Casualty Clearing Station; and there was little time to mark the graves before the town was captured by the Germans, who extended this cemetery for the burial of their own dead. In 1920 the British graves were removed to Roye New British Cemetery, which was made after the Armistice, by the concentration of graves, almost all from 1918, from the battlefields and from other burial grounds.

There are now over 600, 1914-18 and nearly 45, 1939-45 war casualties commemorated in this site. Of these, a quarter from the 1914-18 War are unidentified and special memorials are erected to 12 soldiers from the United Kingdom and one from South Africa, known or believed to be buried among them. Other special memorials record the names of 109 United Kingdom soldiers, seven South African and one Canadian, buried in other cemeteries, whose graves could not be found.

Roye New British Cemetery is located on the south-eastern outskirts of Roye, on the D934 Roye to Noyon road. Roye is located 100km north of Paris on the A1 Paris-Lille Highway (Autoroute du Nord), in the County of the Somme, France.