9th Battalion, Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers (British Army)
Date Of Birth:
22/07/1899
Died:
29/03/1918 (Killed in Action)
Age:
18
Summary
Edward James McNeill was the youngest son of Dugald and Catherine McNeill. He was born on 22nd July 1899 in Dungannon. He was one of at least 13 children. His father was a pastry baker who later became a confectioner. Edward enlisted in Dungannon and arrived in France with the Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers on 5th October 1915. Sergeant Edward James McNeill was serving with the 9th Battalion of the Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers when he was killed in action on 29th March 1918.
Pozieres is a village 6 kilometres north-east of the town of Albert. The Memorial encloses Pozieres British Cemetery which is a little south-west of the village on the north side of the main road, D929, from Albert to Pozieres. On the road frontage is an open arcade terminated by small buildings and broken in the middle by the entrance and gates. Along the sides and the back, stone tablets are fixed in the stone rubble walls bearing the names of the dead grouped under their Regiments. It should be added that, although the memorial stands in a cemetery of largely Australian graves, it does not bear any Australian names. The Australian soldiers who fell in France and whose graves are not known are commemorated on the National Memorial at Villers-Bretonneux.
