Herbert Favell
Herbert Favell – Private 26225, 2nd Battalion Duke of Wellington’s (West Riding Regiment) died on Tuesday, 22nd October 1918. His grave is in the Queant Road Cemetery, Pas de Calais, France. According to “Soldiers Died” he was born in Doncaster and enlisted at Normanton. He died of wounds. Pension records show his Dependant to be his mother, Anne Eliza Favell of 164 Church Lane, Normanton, Yorkshire. His Medal Index Card shows he was entitled to the British War Medal and the Victory Medal, but not the 1915 Star, so he would not have served overseas until at least 1916.
The 2nd Battalion of the West Riding regiment was a battalion of regular soldiers and one of the first into France with the BEF (British Expeditionary Force) known as the ‘Old Contemptibles’. Stationed in Dublin at the outbreak of war, the West Riding regiment landed at Havre in France on the 16th August 1914. On the 14th January 1916 they were allocated to the 12th Brigade, 4th Division and later on the 10th February 1918 were moved to the 10th Brigade, 4th Division.
Quéant Road Cemetery was created by the 2nd and 57th Casualty Clearing Stations in October and November 1918. It then consisted of 71 graves (now Plot I, Rows A and B). Herbert’s grave number 1.A.11 indicates that it was one of these first 71. The cemetery was greatly enlarged after the Armistice when 2,200 graves were brought in from the battlefields of 1917-1918 between Arras and Bapaume, and from the following smaller burial grounds in the area