Private Peter Eccleston   44768

64^th Company  Machine Gun Corps. (Inf.)

Son of Peter and Susannah Eccleston, brother to George, Annie, Mary and Bella and lived at what is now number 20, Moss Lane, Barrow Nook , Bickerstaffe.

Peter died whilst serving in Ypres area on the 21^st September 1917, aged 21. He is buried in Lijssethock Military Cemetery, Belgium, in Plot 25. Row K. Grave 5.

Prior to moving to France, Peter and his company were billeted in Blackpool. The photo being taken in a fun photo booth on a day out with his friend Robert Taylor.

Lissenthoek Military Cemetery can be found on the left, soon after leaving Poperinghe, on the D948 road to Steenvoored.

The cemetery is in the village of that name about two miles south-west of Poperinghe. The village lay close behind the extreme range of most enemy field artillery and was therefore a natural place for the establishment of casualty clearing stations, firstly by the French and later the British. The French opened the cemetery and the British began to use it in June 1915. Between that month and the Armistice, it became the second largest Commonwealth cemetery anywhere and is now the second largest in Belgium (Tyne Cot Cemetery is the largest). It contains nearly 10,000 Commonwealth burials of which 7,400 are British, over 1,000 Canadian, aver 1,000 Australian, nearly 300 New Zealand, and 30 South African; the French burials number almost 700. As this cemetery served hospitals, the great majority of the dead were identified.