The war grave of 11131 Private Samuel Brew, 1st Battalion King's Own (Royal Lancaster Regiment), who died of wounds on 15 October 1914, aged 18, is located in Hazebrouck Communal Cemetery Nord, France (Grave III, A7). Sadly, Samuel had only disembarked on 30 August 1914and did not even survive two months on the front.
Samuel was the son of Margaret Fitzgerald, formerly Brew, of 92 Gibson Avenue, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, and the late Samuel Brew. He was a native of Whitehaven, England.
From October 1914 to September 1917, Casualty Clearing Stations were posted at Hazebrouck. From September 1917 to September 1918, enemy shelling and bombing rendered the town unsafe for hospitals, but in September and October 1918, No.9 British Red Cross Hospital was in the town. The British burials began in October 1914 and continued until July 1918. They were made at first among the civilian graves in the old Plots I and II, but after the Armistice these earlier burials were concentrated into the main British enclosure and the Plots were renumbered. During the 1939-45 War, Hazebrouck was on the western flank of the area occupied by the British Expeditionary Force until May 1940. There are now over 950, 1914-18 and nearly 100, 1939-45 war casualties commemorated in this site. Of these, nearly 30 from the 1914-18 War and 20 from the 1939-45 War are unidentified.
Hazebrouck Communal Cemetery Nord is located in Hazebrouck, north north-east of Bethune, on the left side of the main road (D916 from Lillers to Hazebrouck) as you enter the town from the south.
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© Photos taken by Steve Brew on 27 August 1999