PARTRIDGE Benjamin

1914-The First Winter
During the month of December 1914 the 1st Battalion, Worcestershire Regiment was to be found in the sector of the Front Line facing Neuve Chapelle. Until the middle of the month the 1st Worcestershire, and the 1st Sherwood Foresters, held in regular relief the trenches along the La Bassee road in which the Battalion had first met the enemy’s fire. By dint of much hard work the sloping bank of the main road was gradually entrenched and casualties decreased. But the losses in that exposed position and in that bitter weather were very severe. Before the middle of December the Battalion had lost half of its strength – over one hundred killed and wounded and more than four hundred disabled by severe frostbite.

From the 15th November to the 13th December 1914, the actual figures were as follows:
Killed: 4 officers and 35 other ranks
Wounded: 1 officer and 73 other ranks
Evacuated with severe frostbite: 9 officers and 544 other ranks

Source for additional information: The Worcestershire Regiment in the Great War by Captain H. FitzM. Stacke of the Regiment, 1928.

It can only be assumed that Lance Corporal Benjamin Partridge was killed whilst serving in the trenches along the La Bassee Road facing Neuve Chapelle.