PRIVATE SAMUEL BURGESS
CHESHIRE REGIMENT
17TH NOVEMBER 1917 AGE 20
BURIED: ETAPLES MILITARY CEMETERY, FRANCE
This inscription is derived from what was at one time one of the most famous quotations in English history:
Be of good comfort, Master Ridley, and play the man! We shall this day light such a candle, by God's grace, in England, as I trust shall never be put out.
According to John Foxe in his 'Actes and Monuments of these Latter and Perilous Days, touching Matters of the Church' (1563), which is much better known as 'Foxes Book of Martyrs', these are the words spoken by Hugh Latimer, protestant Bishop of Worcester, to his friend Nicholas Ridley, Bishop of London, as they went to be burnt at the stake on 16 October 1555 during the reign of the Roman Catholic Queen Mary I.
Contrary to what I originally thought, "He played the man" does not refer to a youth - Burgess was only 20 - taking on the role of a man, but references a martyrdom by means of a terrible death for what the victims believed was a noble cause.
Samuel Burgess served with the 6th Battalion the Cheshire Regiment, a territorial battalion. I would hazard a guess that he was in C Company since that was based in Hyde where Burgess's parents lived at 136 Nelson Street. The battalion took part in many of the battles that made up Third Ypres: Pilkem Ridge, Langemarck, Menin Road Ridge, Polygon Wood and Second Passchendaele. Burgess, who died of wounds in one of the base hospitals in Etaples, could have been wounded in any one of them.