Capt Arthur de Bells Adam (MC)
1885 - 1916

CPL David Wallace Crawford
1887 - 1916

Lce-Corpl John Joseph Nickle
1894 - 1916

Pte 17911 Morton Neill
1897 - 1916

Lieut Edward Stanley Ashcroft
1883 - 1918

Sgt 57856 Hugh Shotton

Age: 24
From: Morpeth, Northumberland
Regiment: The King's (Liverpool Regiment) 18th Btn
K.I.A Saturday 20th April 1918
Commemorated at: Tyne Cot Memorial
Panel Ref: Panel 31-34

Hugh was born in Morpeth either early 1894 (or late 1893) the son of John Shotton and his wife Tamar (nee Redpath).His parents were both born in Northumberland and married in 1891.

He had an older brother William (Willie), born in 1893, and younger siblings John, 1896, Isabel 1898, and Bartholomew, born in 1901 but died in infancy.

At the time of the 1901 census the family is living in Long Row South, Radcliffe, with four children, Hugh is 7. Both parents are 30, his father is a coal miner/hewer, like most of the men in their neighbourhood.

His mother died age 31 in 1901, when Hugh was 7 years old. Like his father.

By 1911 his father and the four children are living in Long Row North, Radcliffe, Acklington. They share three rooms with his aunt and uncle, John and Mary Glass, cousin Minnie, age 2, and a domestic servant. His father, 40, is head of household, a coal miner/stoneman, below ground, Isabell, 13, is at school. The three sons are all down the mines. William, 18, and Hugh, 17, are putters, and John, 15, is a pony driver below ground. (A putter pushes or drags the coal in small wagons called trams, from the workings to the passages in which horses could be employed.)

Hugh was a coal miner before the war.

He married Catherine Bolton Gair in 1916. Their son Joseph Gair Shotton was born on 05th September 1916.

He enlisted in Amble, Northumberland in about November 1914 joining the Northumberland Divisional Cyclist Company as Private 1480. He achieved the rank of Sergeant before being transferred to the 18^th Battalion of The King’s Liverpool Regiment as Sergeant No 57856.

Hugh was killed in action on the 20^th April 1918, aged 24, during the German Spring Offensive.

He has no known grave and is commemorated on the Tyne Cot Memorial in Belgium.

Those United Kingdom and New Zealand servicemen who died after August 16th 1917 are named on the Tyne Cot Memorial, a site which marks the furthest point reached by Commonwealth forces in Belgium until nearly the end of the war.

The Tyne Cot Memorial now bears the names of almost 35,000 officers and men whose graves are not known. The memorial, designed by Sir Herbert Baker with sculpture by Joseph Armitage and F.V. Blundstone, was unveiled by Sir Gilbert Dyett on 20 June 1927.

The memorial forms the north-eastern boundary of Tyne Cot Cemetery, which was established around a captured German blockhouse or pill-box used as an advanced dressing station.

Hugh earned his three medals, which were returned and reissued for the unit to be amended.

His Army effects and a War Gratuity of £20-10s went to his widow Catherine.

The pension card giving Catherine’s address as 11 Leazes Street, Amble, shows that she was awarded a pension of £1-2s-11d a week from 11/11/1918.

His brother John had a son he named Hugh.

His widow remarried in 1924.

In 1939 Catherine, again widowed, is a hotel proprietress at the Dock Hotel, Queen Street, Amble, with a married stepdaughter and her children. His son Joseph, newly married, is living in Amble, at 10 Woodbine Street, working as a bricklayer.

Catherine died in 1962, aged 67.

His son died in 1976.

Hugh is commemorated on the following memorials-

Radcliffe War Memorial

Morpeth Cenotaph

St. Cuthbert’s Parish Tablet, Amble.

We currently have no further information on Hugh Shotton, If you have or know someone who may be able to add to the history of this soldier, please contact us.

Killed On This Day.

(109 Years this day)
Friday 20th April 1917.
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21 years old

(109 Years this day)
Friday 20th April 1917.
Pte 73671 Ellis Marsden
39 years old

(108 Years this day)
Saturday 20th April 1918.
2nd Lieut Harry Crook
44 years old

(108 Years this day)
Saturday 20th April 1918.
Pte 86268 George John Fasham
30 years old

(108 Years this day)
Saturday 20th April 1918.
Pte 20781 John Green
25 years old

(108 Years this day)
Saturday 20th April 1918.
Sgt 57856 Hugh Shotton
24 years old

(108 Years this day)
Saturday 20th April 1918.
Pte 90940 Frederick William Tomlinson
19 years old

(108 Years this day)
Saturday 20th April 1918.
Sgt 23876 Henry Young
22 years old