Service Life:

Campaigns:

• The First World War 1914-1918, World-wide.

The Gallipoli Campaign was fought on the Gallipoli peninsula 25th April 1915 to 9th January 1916. in a failed attempt to defeat Turkey by seizing the Dardanelles and capturing Istanbul. Ill-conceived and planned, the initial effort by the Royal Navy failed to force passage through the Dardanelles by sea power alone. It was then realised that a land force was needed to support the project by suppressing the Turkish mobile artillery batteries. By the time all was ready the Turks were well aware and well prepared. Despite amazing heroics on the day of the landings only minor beachheads were achieved and over the succeeding 8 months little progress was made. Eventually the beachheads were evacuated in a series of successful ruses.

Despite Gallipoli rightly becoming a national source of pride to Australians and New Zealanders, far more British casualties were sustained, and these days the substantial French contribution is almost forgotten.

Detail :

On the Memorial Cross outside Portsmouth Cathedral: J. F. SUTCLIFFE. The CWGC lists 37 men named Sutcliffe with the first initial ?J? and only 2 named ?JF?. One of the latter was a member of the Durham Light Infantry and had a home in Bradshaw. He has therefore been discounted as the name on the Cross. The other is James Frederick Sutcliffe, Lieutenant, Royal Marine Light Infantry (Portsmouth Bn.) who died on 14/07/1915 and is remembered on the Helles Memorial, Turkey. His name appears on no other memorial in Portsmouth apart from the Cathedral Cross but the Parish Magazine list gives his name as James F. on the first list, albeit under the ?not identified? tag, and J.F. on the second list. However, the Parish Magazine edition of Aug.1915 reports that ?Lieutenant James Frederick Sutcliffe, R.M.L.I. Portsmouth Battalion, was killed in the Dardanelles on or about July 13 and 14. His death will be a great loss to St. Thomas' choir. We were proud of him when he obtained his commission from warrant rank since the outbreak of the war. Our deepest sympathy goes out to his relations in Gosport.? Birth registers show him as born in 1877 in Medway, Kent, the son of James and Alice Sutcliffe. The 1881 and 1891 Censuses record the family living in London though the mother died in 1890. Marriage records show he married Gladys Mills in 1912 in Portsmouth whilst birth records show them having a son James in 1914 whilst they were living in Alverstoke. Father was in the Royal Marines so it seems likely that the son followed the family tradition

Masonic :

Source :

The project globally acknowledges the following as sources of information for research across the whole database:

• The Commonwealth War Graves Commission
• The (UK) National Archives
• Ancestry.co.uk - Genealogy, Family Trees & Family History online
• ugle.org.uk - The records of the United Grand Lodge of England including the Library and Museum of Freemasonry

Additional Source:

• Founder Researchers : Paul Masters & Mike McCarthy
• Researcher : Bruce Littley