The Great War memorial plaque issued in remembrance of Company Sergeant-Major J. H. Yates, 1/5th Battalion, Lancashire Fusiliers, who was killed in action in Gallipoli in August 1915

Memorial Plaque 1914-18 (James Hargreaves Yates), in its cardboard sleeve with Buckingham Palace message, together with two original ‘In Remembrance Cards’, extremely fine £100-120

James Hargreaves Yates was killed by enemy artillery fire in Gallipoli on 7 August 1915, while serving as a Company Sergeant-Major in 1/5th Battalion, Lancashire Fusiliers. In Hells Foundation, Geoffrey Moorhouse writes:

‘The 1/5th too had by now been reduced to a token of its original strength. It landed in May with 30 officers and 1,000 men. When George Horridge returned to it on August 15th, he found to his horror that it had shrunk to 6 officers and 150 men. Company Sergeant-Major Yates was one of those who had disappeared during Horridge’s absence in the Egyptian Hospital. In Cairo, before they set sail for the Peninsula, Yates confided in the young Second Lieutenant his belief that he would die sometime in the months ahead. But he had come through the landing and Third Krithia without a scratch. The night before the Helles diversion he spent several hours quietly alone, at prayer. He went over the top next morning carrying a walking stick, with a pistol in his other hand. He returned from the engagement, too, unharmed. During the night a shell landed in his trench, and that was the end of him.’

His wife, Annie, and his parents lived in Bury. Yates was 34 years of age and is commemorated on the Helles Memorial.