Please find below some photos of the Rededication Service for Lance Corporal Samuel Chapman of 1/4th Battalion The East Yorkshire Regiment, who was killed in action on 14 December 1917. This service took place at Tyne Cot Cemetery, Passendale, Belgium on Wednesday 26 March 2025.

Lance Corporal Samuel Chapman was born on 6 March 1898 in Hull, East Yorkshire. He was the youngest of three children born to Samuel Chapman and his wife Rachel. As a child Sam was a choir boy at St Mary's Church in Beverley. He and his elder brother, John, are now both commemorated on a plaque in the church. At the start of the First World War Sam worked as an assistant steward on SS Transport Romeo, which operated between Scandinavia and Hull.

Sam enlisted into The East Yorkshire Regiment in March 1915 and arrived on the Western Front to join the 1/4^th Battalion on 1 September 1915. The battalion took part in the Battle of the Somme in 1916 and the Battle of Arras in the spring of 1917, before moving to the Ypres Salient, where they took part in the Third Battle of Ypres.

The War Diaries on 1/4th Battalion The East Yorkshire Regiment state that on 12 December 1917, they relieved 2^nd Battalion The Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders in the line near Passchendaele. On 14 December the battalion was still in the line and it is recorded that RSM Jagger was killed, and three men were wounded. It is possible that Lance Corporal Chapman was amongst these men, although he may have been wounded earlier. 

Lance Corporal Chapman was evacuated to the Regimental Aid Post at Tyne Cot. This was located in a pillbox with elephant shelters erected next to it and is now the location of the Cross of Sacrifice. Casualties who did not survive were buried near the pillbox. Lance Corporal Chapman was one such casualty and appears to have died there or en route to the RAP on 14 December 1917. He was 19 years old. 

His brother, Private John Chapman of 1/5^th Battalion The Yorkshire Regiment, had died of wounds just six weeks earlier on 28 October 1917. He is buried in Dozinghem Military Cemetery. 

The marker over the grave of Lance Corporal Chapman was lost. After the war the grave was rediscovered but as the casualty was not identifiable, the grave was recorded as being that of an unknown lance corporal of 1/4^th Battalion The East Yorkshire Regiment. And as he was missing, Lance Corporal Chapman was commemorated on the Tyne Cot Memorial. However, new research has shown that this was in fact his grave and the headstone over the grave has now been replaced and rededicated.






























































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