Early Life :

Service Life:

Campaigns:

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

31 July - 10 November 1917. By the summer of 1917 the British Army was able for the first time to fight on its chosen ground on its terms. Having secured the southern ridges of Ypres at Messines in June, the main attack started on 31st July 1917 accompanied by what seemed like incessant heavy rain, which coupled with the artillery barrages conspired to turn much of the battlefield into a bog. Initial failure prompted changes in the high command and a strategy evolved to take the ring of ridges running across the Ypres salient in a series of 'bite and hold' operations, finally culminating in the capture of the most easterly ridge on which sat the infamous village of Passchendaele. The Official History carries the footnote ?The clerk power to investigate the exact losses was not available? but estimates of British casualties range from the official figure of 244,000 to almost 400,000. Within five months the Germans pushed the British back to the starting line, which was where they had been since May 1915.

Detail :

Commissioned into the RWF in March 1915, he was posted to France on September 6, 1916.

Ralph Picton Daniel, Captain, Royal Welsh Fusiliers. Ralph served with the 17th Battalion, Royal Welsh Fusiliers, which was attached to the 115th Brigade, 38th (Welsh) Division. The Division had landed in France during December 1915 and had spent their first winter in the trenches near Armentieres. In June they marched south to the Somme, where they were tasked with the capture of Mametz Wood. The attack on the wood began on the 7th July, but met with fierce resistance, and it took until the 14th July to clear the wood. The Division suffered terrible casualties at Mametz, and were taken out of the line, and moved to Ypres to rebuild. Here they fought at Pilckem Ridge, and it was here that Ralph was killed in action on the 31st July, 1917. He is buried at Artillery Wood Cemetery, Belgium.

Western Mail 4th August 1917: " PORTHCAWL CAPTAIN KILLED. - Information has reached Mrs. Daniel, of 17, Fenton-place, Porthcawl, that her son, Captain Ralph Picton Daniel, was killed in action on July 31. The captain belonged to the Royal Welsh Fusiliers. He joined at the commencement of the war, and two-and-a-half years ago, as a sequence to devotion to duty, received his commission. He was home on furlough a month ago, but knowing that his company was to be engaged in the great offensive he hurried back to his post of duty. He was 35 years of age, and he leaves a widowed mother and several sisters, one of whom is now at one of the Cardiff military hospitals, and a brother, Lieutenant Jasper Daniel, is in the Royal Flying Corps."

Western Mail 26th September 1917: "CAPTAIN R.P. DANIEL, BRIGHTON. Captain Ralph Picton Daniel, 7th Battalion Royal Welsh Fusiliers, of 28. Grenville-place, Brighton, who was killed in Belgium on July 31, has left property of the value of £4,269. Probate is granted to Mr. Rupert Lee Daniel, of 5, Worcester-place, Swansea, the curator of Edith Daniel, the widow, now a minor."

Captain Daniel is buried at Artillery Wood Cemetery, Belgium, and is remembered on Porthcawl War Memorial.

Masonic :

Discrepancies (Require checks, clarity or further research) :

Found in the records of "Lodge of Tudno" No. 755, where he was initiated only and recorded as "Killed in Action Nov. 1917". At the time of initiation he was living in Portcawl and employed as a "Captain in Army".

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