PRIVATE ALFRED SPENCER BUTTERWORTH
DUKE OF WELLINGTON'S WEST RIDING REGIMENT
20TH NOVEMBER 1917 AGE 19
BURIED: PERTH CEMETERY (CHINA WALL), YPRES, BELGIUM
I've woven a human story around this inscription but I'm sure I'm not imagining things. Someone who knew Alfred Butterworth was with him when he died and was able to tell his parents that he "gave me his usual smile and a word of cheer". "His usual smile", they couldn't have said this if they hadn't known him. But don't get the idea that Alfred died comfortably in a hospital bed. In August 1919 his body was brought in for reburial from map reference D 28 b 2.3, indicating that his had been a front-line, battlefield death.
As intended, the words must have brought comfort to the parents who chose them for their son's headstone inscription.
Alfred was the eldest child of John Butterworth, a woollen spinner from Saddleworth in Yorkshire. In 1911, twelve-year-old Alfred was working as a piecer in a woollen mill, someone, usually a child, who speedily repaired broken threads as the cloth was being woven.