Lance Corporal Fergus Ronald, XIII Platoon, 17th (Service) Battalion Manchester Regiment – Mentioned in Despatches

Fergus Ronald was born in 1893 at Hulme, in Manchester, one of three children of John, a glazier, and Elizabeth Ronald. The family had moved to 52 Hall Street, Moston by 1911, when his parents had become greengrocers and Fergus was employed as a shoe and boot shop assistant, subsequently taking a job with Waste Bleachers.

On 3 September 1914, Fergus joined the queues at Manchester’s Free Trade Hall to enlist in a second clerks’ and warehousemen’s battalion, the 2nd City Battalion – retitled 17th (Service) Battalion in early December – Manchester Regiment, one of eight pals battalions raised in Manchester. Assigned to XIII Platoon in the Battalion’s D Company, he was subsequently appointed lance corporal and embarked with his unit at Folkestone for Boulogne on 8 November 1915. The Battalion undertook a familiarisation front line tour mentored by the 6th Royal Warwicks from 9-12 December, C and D Companies relieving A and B in the trenches on the 11th. The Battalion remained in billets over Christmas and New Year and left for the Maricourt sector of the front, just north of the River Somme, in early January.

Fergus was wounded in early July 1916, either during the successful attack on Montauban on 1 July, the opening day of the Battle of the Somme, or the unsuccessful attempt to clear Trones Wood nine days later. He was one of four 17th Battalion other-ranks mentioned for distinguished and gallant service and devotion to duty in Field-Marshal Haig’s despatch of 8 April 1917, possibly for their conduct during the unit’s attack near Flers the previous October. All four belonged to different companies, suggesting that the four company commanders had been asked to nominate one soldier each for commendation. Fergus never learnt of his Mention as it did not appear in the London Gazette until a month after his death on 23 April 1917, the first day of the 2nd Battle of the Scarpe. He was one of 12 (18.5%) of the 65 original members of XIII Platoon to be killed in action or die of their wounds during the Great War.

Fergus is commemorated on the Arras Memorial in France and on his parents’ headstone in Southern Cemetery at Chorlton-cum-Hardy.