Universities at War

Lawrence Shortridge was born 7 September 1888 at Lanercost, Carlisle, the son of Robert and Hannah Shortridge. He spent most of his early life at Wark on Tyne where his father was head of the elementary school. Lawrence attended Bede College 1907-1909, and upon gaining his schoolmaster certificate taught at Castle Eden Colliery School, living at the Post office at Hesleden. During his time at Bede College he played in the college tennis team, and coxed in one the college’s rowing crews. He enlisted into the 1/8^th Battalion of the Durham Light Infantry at Durham and served as Private 2651. He left for France with the Battalion in April 1915, but was soon killed in action, aged 26, during the Second Battle of Ypres. While the Commonwealth War Graves Commission reports his death in action on 26 June 1915, The Bede magazine, on the other hand, reported him missing before 31 May, and a notice in the Newcastle Daily Journal in October 1915 reported the family had been notified he had been killed in action east of Ypres ‘about the 28^th April’. It is likely therefore that Shortridge fell during the battalion’s first engagement at Gravenstafel Ridge in the last week of April, but his death was only officially confirmed on 26 June. He has no known grave and is therefore commemorated on the Menin Gate at Ypres. In addition to his name being found on the Bede College 1914-1918 cross, plaque, and Roll of Honour, he is also commemorated at Wark on Tyne on a plaque at St Michael Church and on a cross on the village green, and on a clock, bell and plaque at St John, Hesledon, and in the National Union of Teachers War Record 1914-1919 (1920).