James Cooper Private 40191 -1st Bn. Royal Dublin Fusiliers Killed in action on Wednesday 18th July 1917 age 24. Buried in Bard Cottage Cemetery, West-Vlaanderen, Belgium. James Cooper was the son of Stephen Cooper from Broadhill and Ann Fowell, daughter of Gnosall High Street pork butchers Samuel and Mary Fowell. Jame’s parents Stephen and Ann married at St. Lawrence Church in 4 th  October 1881 and went on to have 11 children; James was born in 1893. On both the 1901 and 1911 census records the family were living at Reule Farm, where Stephen Cooper was the farm bailiff. James was called up to enlist for the war and fought in France and Flanders. So many men were being killed that the survivors of many depleted regiments had to be absorbed into others to keep going as a Force. James ended up in the 1 st  Battalion of the Royal Dublin Fusiliers – they themselves had suffered heavy losses in Gallipoli and had joined with the 1 st  Royal Munster Fusiliers (known together as the ‘Dubsters’) and landed in Marseilles to join the war in the North in 1916. A month or so after James’ 24 th  birthday the Battle of Passchendaele (3 rd  Battle of Ypres) began on the 18 th  July 1917, (although infantry troops did not attack until the 31 st ). It began with a major artillery bombardment launched at the German lines which lasted ten days (three thousand artillery guns fired over four million shells). James Cooper was killed on the first day. He was later buried in Bard Cottage Cemetery near the village of Boezinge in West Flanders. - Plot 3; Row C; Grave 6.