5494 Pte John Edward Cox, 2nd Bn East Lancashire Regt.
Resident at 6, Roebuck Street, Burnley, John - who was born in Burnley in 1893 - was employed as a driller at Butterworth & Dickinson's, Rosegrove, prior to the outbreak of war. A competent boxer, he enlisted into the Special Reserve in 1913 and was mobilised in August 1914. He joined the 2nd Bn East Lancs at Hursley Park in October 1914 and went with them to Flanders, arriving at Le Havre on 6 November 1914. After serving in French Flanders for much of 1915 - and suffering from frost-bite during the winter of 1915 - he took part in the opening phase of the Battle of the Somme before being moved north to the Hohenzollern sector of the Loos front. Here, whilst engaged in routine trench duties, he was killed in action and posted as missing on 27 August 1916, a day marked as being ‘quiet' in the battalion war diary. John is commemorated on the Loos Memorial.
27 August 1916
Research by David O'Mara, Croonaert Research Services.
