Source: Michael Doyle Their Name Liveth For Evermore: The Great War Roll of Honour for Leicestershire and Rutland.
He was the son of Herbert Barrowcliff, JP., a hosiery manufacturer, born in the 3rd quarter of 1856 in Loughborough, Leics., and his wife Mary Ann (nee Ford, married in the 4th quarter of 1880 in the Basford, Notts. district), born in the 2nd quarter of 1857 in New Basford, Notts. Cyril Herbert Ford Barrowcliff was born on the 9th February 1897 in Loughborough, Leics., his siblings were Marmaduke, born in the 2nd quarter of 1883, Helen Mary, born in the 4th quarter of 1886, Evelyn Annie, born in the 3rd quarter of 1888 and Dorothy, born in the 4th quarter of 1892, all his siblings were born in Loughborough, Leics., in March 1901 the family home was at Ashby Road, Loughborough, Leics. In April 1911 Cyril was a schoolboy and was residing in the family home at Whetstone Road, Blaby, Leics., together with his father, a retired hosiery manufacturer, his mother and siblings, Dorothy, a schoolgirl and Katharine Winifred, born in the 1st quarter of 1906 in Lutterworth, Leics. Cyril first entered the theatre of war with the Leicestershire Regiment, as a Private, 14967 on the 29th July 1915, and was promoted to 2nd Lieutenant on the 30/31st July 1917. The Wyggeston Grammar School for Boys published a Roll of Honour on the 31st January 1920 in which an entry appeared showing that he had been a pupil at the school between 1909 and 1913, it also recorded that he had been killed in action in France on the 3rd November 1917.
The War Diary entries for the period 27th to 31st October 1917 record. 27/10/17 IN THE FIELD. Day spent in organisation of Battalion ready for moving into the line. 28/10/17 IN THE FIELD. 2pm Battalion moved into reserve. RAILWAY EMBANKMENT, ZILLEBEKE. 29/10/17 IN THE FIELD. 2.30pm. Battalion moved up into support, relieving 8th LEICESTERSHIRE REGT. Two Companies C and D and HQ at CLAPHAM JUNCTION and two Companies A and B in close support in POLYGON WOOD. 30/10/17 IN THE FIELD. Still in support. Casualties reported Other Ranks. Killed one. Wounded eleven. 31/10/17 IN THE FIELD. The Battalion moved into the front line at REUTEL relieving 7th LEICESTERSHIRE REGT. Four Other Ranks reported wounded. Total casualties for the month. Killed in action Officers 2. Other Ranks 24. Died of wounds received in action Officers nil. Other Ranks 12. Wounded Officers 7. Other Ranks 169. Missing 3.

Reproduced below is a comprehensive account of the family background and military service of Cyril Herbert Ford Barrowcliff, always known by the first name of Ford. I am grateful to its author, Christopher Johnson, the great nephew of Ford, for his permission to add this considerable background information to my own research.

Ford’s early life
Cyril Herbert Ford Barrowcliff was born on 9/2/1897 at home, Broxholme, Ashby Road, Loughborough, home town of his father Herbert, a hosiery manufacturer already aged 40. He was the 6th child, with a brother (Marmaduke) 17 years his senior and 3 sisters, another boy having died in infancy. In 1901 they were living in the same house, but by 1906 had moved to Lutterworth (South West Leics), where his sister Kitty was born and he attended Lutterworth Grammar School. In 1909 Ford went to Wyggeston Grammar School in Leicester, so it must be around that time that the family moved to the village of Blaby, just South West of Leicester, where they are recorded in 1911 as living on Whetstone Road, Herbert having retired. Ford left school in 1913, and in July 1914 he was reported in the local newspaper as one of the mourners at the funeral of his maternal grandfather, Alderman John Parr Ford, retired box manufacturer, chairman of Shipstone’s Brewery and Sheriff of Nottingham. By October 1917 Ford’s parents were living at 13 Shirley Road, Nottingham, not far from the suburb of New Basford where his mother Annie (née Ford) had been born; Herbert was now a JP.

A reminder of the military context
Having volunteered as a Private, Ford arrived in France on 29/7/1915. He was initially with the 9th Battalion of the Leicestershire Regiment, which, together with the regiment’s other ‘New Army’ Service battalions, the 6th, 7th & 8th, formed the 110th ‘Leicester Tigers’ Brigade, itself part of the 21st Division of General Herbert Plumer’s 2nd Army. In 1917 they saw action in the German retreat to the Hindenburg Line (14/3-5/4) and the Arras Offensive (9/4-16/5). On 31/7/1917 he was commissioned 2nd Lieutenant in the 7th Battalion, the very day that the Battle of Passchendaele (or 3rd Battle of Ypres) began. The objective was to dislodge the Germans from the low ridges East of Ypres and, ultimately, break through to Ostend etc, from where U-Boats were starting to disrupt British shipping. Due to rain and well-prepared German positions, little progress was made until a new ‘bite & hold’ strategy, aided by dry weather, brought some minor successes in late September.

October 1917
The 7th Battalion was in action on 1 & 2/10 due East of Ypres, West of Becelaere, pushing the front line from just East of Black Watch Corner, to just beyond Cameron House. They started out with 19 officers and 400 men, and suffered 19 killed (of which 2 officers), 115 wounded (of which 5 officers), 9 missing (presumed wounded), 7 gassed and 13 with shell shock. Since the report names the Battalion and Company commanders as well as the Officer casualties, we know the names of 11 of the 19 officers - Ford must have been one of the other 8.

During the next week, other units pushed the line further east, to run in a North East diagonal from Cameron Covert to Reutel village and beyond. It now started raining and continued almost without stop until the 26th, when the 2nd Battle of Passchendaele was launched. The main push took place further north, towards Passchendaele village, but the 21st Division’s job was to make minor gains, protecting the SouthWest flank and gaining better visibility over the shallow valley below Reutel and towards Becelaere. The 1st Bn East Yorkshire Regiment took care of part of this for the first 2 days, but the 7th Battalion was already mobilised on the 26th for the 2-day march from their rest billet by the badly damaged château of Segard, SouthWest of Ypres.

Picking up a guide at Hooge Crater on the Menin Road at 4.30pm on Sat 27th they aimed to relieve the East Yorks at the right of the front line under the cover of darkness. At 10.30pm the Germans began a heavy barrage all along the line, lasting until 7am. It seems likely that Ford was killed during this episode. The Battalion made and withstood no attacks during this period, and on 13/11 retired from this section of the line, having really only been involved in heavy fighting on 1&2/10, but suffering significant casualties nonetheless. During this period, the area was visited by the future Sir David Kelly (Ambassador to Moscow etc), in his rôle as Brigade Intelligence Officer; he commented that ‘Reutelbeek, on the map a stream, was on the ground, a huge lake, owing to shell fire, while, as for the sites of Reutel and Moelenaarsthoek villages, it would be quite inadequate to describe them as blown to pieces. Reutel had figured in the divisional order as some kind of boundary mark, but not even one speck of brick dust, let alone half a brick, had survived.’ In 2014 it is back to being a quiet hamlet.

One confusing factor is that the Commonwealth War Graves Commission (and some other records which use it as a source) record Ford’s Battalion as the 6th. However, the Relief Table lists the 6th as due to move on 28/10 from Brewery Camp to Reserve Railway Dugouts at Zillebeke and relieve the 7th on the evening of 29th, which they did. In other words, they were nowhere near the front line on the 27th and they record no Officers killed then. The same is true of the 9th, whose War Diary names 1 officer wounded on the 27th, but none killed. Unfortunately the War Diary of the 7th for the crucial period 26-31/10 is missing, along with the monthly summary of casualties, which would normally name officers. Also absent is any mention of Ford’s promotion to 2nd Lieutenant (on 31/7/17), departure or arrival in the Diaries of any of the 3 Battalions with which he is linked. Prior to this, he would not have been named unless he had won a medal or something special, since ‘Other Ranks’ (O/Rs) were merely treated as statistics in reports. Since the Regiment records the 7th Battalion, which was (just) in the line on the day of Ford’s death, it seems fair to assume that this is the correct one.

Our guide speculated that the former battlefield cemetery just East of Reutel might have been ‘forgotten’, when they were consolidated after the war, and thus maybe Ford’s resting place. However, it transpires that this was principally a German cemetery (one of many conflated into 4 in the 1950s), while the description of the Perth Cemetery, North of Zillebeke, specifically mentions that it includes the remains of 125 UK solders & airmen, removed from Reutel cemetery. One concludes that:
• Since there were no attacks over the British front line, his body could not have been lost in No-Man’s Land.
• If he had been killed by a sniper while behind British lines, he would have been buried in a marked grave.
• If Ford was buried at Reutel, his body is unlikely to have been missed by both the British and German relocations.
• An outside possibility is that a marked grave of his in Reutel cemetery was disturbed by subsequent shell-fire (a not infrequent occurrence), later becoming one of the unmarked ones in Perth cemetery, where half of the 2,800 bodies are unidentified.
• Failing the latter, the logical assumption is that his body was rendered unidentifiable and unburiable by a shell, hence his listing at Tyne Cot on Panel 51, among the 35,000 with no known graves.


In the UK, Ford is commemorated in 4 places
• On a plaque at Lutterworth College, at that time Lutterworth Grammar School, now a 14-18 Comprehensive Upper School. He was living here with his parents in 1906, when Kitty was born.
• All Saint’s Church, Blaby (just South West of Leicester); on a plaque below the stained glass East Window commemorating the village’s WW1 dead. He was living here with his parents in 1911.
• On an obelisk on Lutterworth Rd, Blaby, commemorating the dead of both World Wars.
• On the War Memorial & Roll of Honour of Wyggeston & Queen Elizabeth I College, Leicester, at that time Wyggeston Grammar School, now a VI Form College. He was a pupil there between 1909 and 1913. Note that he joined up in July 1915.
Additional Notes
Lutterworth College
There has been a school located on the current site since 1613. Lutterworth Grammar School was built in 1880 to provide a ‘middle class school’ for 50 boarders and day scholars. The school took boys only and aimed to give them a classical education - girls were admitted in 1902. It became a Comprehensive school in 1967, and in 2006 changed its name to Lutterworth College. As the school has increased in size (from around 750 in 1967 to around 1900 today) the facilities have grown, yet the site remains in a beautiful setting in rural Leicestershire.
Wyggeston & Queen Elizabeth I College
Originally founded in 1536 in memory of William Wyggeston (pronounced and sometimes spelt ‘Wigston’), a wool merchant who was Mayor of, and MP for Leicester, as well as Mayor of Calais, where he had business interests. He founded an early ‘hospital’ (almshouse) in Leicester in 1513, now called Wyggeston’s Hospital, a retirement home for old people on Hinckley Road. He is one of the figures honoured on Leicester's Clock Tower.
The school became defunct in the 19th century, but was re-launched in 1877; it became a VI Form College in 1978, still on the same site adjoining Victoria Park and the university. It now has over 2200 students. The headmaster from 1878-1920 was Rev. James Went.
The school cenotaph, listing the names of 202 pupils & staff, was unveiled on 10/7/1922 by Major-General H.L. Croker, CB, CMG, and dedicated by the Bishop of Peterborough. The architect was Col. J.C. Baines, an Old Boy. The War Memorial Fund was used to help pupils go to university, especially the sons of men who had served in the War.

Source: Leicestershire War Memorials Project.
Former service number before becoming an officer: 14967