The 7th Battalion of the Northumberland Fusiliers served in France and Flanders for nearly three years with their original brigade, the 149th Infantry Brigade of the 50th (Northumbrian) Division, and afterwards for the last nine months of the war they served in France with the 42nd (East Lancashire) Division, to whom they were attached as Pioneer Battalion.

With the 149th Infantry Brigade they landed in France on the 21st April, 1915, and without any preliminary war experience, without time even to get the atmosphere of the front, they were thrust into the second battle of Ypres, to counter-attack on two successive days an enemy greatly superior in numbers, overwhelmingly superior in artillery, and elated with the success of a devilish gas attack. Under the circumstances it was a massacre by the German artillery and machine-guns rather than a man to man fight. But that gallant advance into the unknown horrors of modern war, did several things. It laid the foundation of battalion tradition, and it gave the British line, tottering and almost broken, a breathing space in which to consolidate and re-form. A staff officer of the Regular Army writes: "No stouter hearts ever existed than those of the original Division, and I shall never forget my comrades from Yorkshire, Durham and Northumberland. the attack of the 149th Infantry Brigade on St. Julien on the 25th and 26th April, 1915, was one of the finest feats of arms I have ever seen."
After this violent baptism into war, during one of its worst and most critical phases, the lot of the battalion, or rather its survivors, was by no means a bed of roses. They were back again in the Salient almost as soon as the mud was cleaned off their equipment; and on and off for four weeks they held trenches of the worst description between Wieltje and Hooge. At the latter place, on the 16th June, 1915, they supported an attack in the second battle of Bellewarde, a very trying and expensive experience.

PS,

His brother Thomas, who was in the Northumberland Hussars, was discharged from service and died from his wounds in 1919 at Hepburn Lodge, Northumberland. He was awarded the Silver War Badge.
He is buried in St Peters Churchyard near Chillingham, Northumberland. The stone also bears his brother William's name, who received the usual 15 Star, British War, and Victory Medals.

God rest their souls.