A WORCESTER community group is trying to trace the background of a First World War soldier buried in the city’s Astwood Cemetery.

Warndon Library Community Group has joined a national project researching the lives of servicemen injured at Passchendaele in Belgium in 1917 and has decided to concentrate its efforts on one soldier, Private Walter John Cottrill of the 1st/8th Battalion of the Worcestershire Regiment.

The group is interested in finding out more about Pte Cottrill and whether he has any living descendants in the county.

The search is part of The Big Idea Company’s Passchendaele at Home project and the Worcestershire World War One Hundred project.

Hundreds of men wounded at the Battle of Passchendaele were evacuated to hospitals in the UK but died during treatment and there is no central record of the location of their graves or memorials.

The aim of the Passchedaele at Home project is to research and locate their graves and memorials in the UK for the first time so they can be recorded.

So far the Warndon Library group has discovered:

• That Private Walter John Cottrill’s army number was No. 203068

• He was born on November 12, 1890 to parents John and Eliza Cottrill. He was a twin to his sister Ethel, who died in infancy in 1892.

• He married Emma Marie Moore, whom he probably met in Worcester where she was in domestic service, on August 17, 1914 in Bath. They lived in Worcester and Walter worked for his father, who was a manager at the Birmingham and Worcester Coal Company.

• Walter enlisted on November 22, 1916 and was wounded at Ypres on October 9, 1917. He died eleven days later, aged 26, on October 20, 1917 at the University War Hospital, Southampton, of pneumonia and was buried in Astwood Cemetery.

James Robertson, library customer advisor at Warndon Library, said: “Our group has undertaken some fantastic research into Private Walter Cottrill and we have brief history on his life as well as knowing where he was buried.

"We are really interested to find out more about Walter, especially if he has any descendants still living in the Worcestershire area.

"If you can help in any way to add to our knowledge and to the national data base being created as part of the national project we would be delighted to hear from you.”

On the anniversary of Pte Cottrill’s death on October 20, the group will hold a remembrance service at his graveside and will compile the information about his life and death for an exhibition which will be on display at Warndon Library and The Hive in Worcester on the day.

If you have information about Pte Cottrill please contact James Robertson at Warndon Library on 01905 822722 or email jrobertson@worcestershire.gov.uk. To find out more about Passchendaele at Home visit http://www.bigideascompany.org/