MARCINELLE NEW COMMUNAL CEMETERY
Hainaut
Belgium
GPS Coordinates: Latitude: 50.37847 Longitude: 4.4439
Picture © Werner Van Caneghem
Location Information
Marcinelle New Communal Cemetery is located 3 kilometres south west of Charleroi.
From the Charleroi ring road, R9, exit at number 30 onto the N5 towards Philippeville. After 500 metres turn right onto the N 565, rue Pierre Bailly. Continue along this road to the rue des Haies. After 1 kilometre this road becomes the rue Babotterie and continues for a futher kilometre onto the rue Babotterie. 1 kilometre further on, the road changes its name to the rue Montagne and meets a church and the right hand turning, onto the rue Louis Pasteur. The next left hand turning leads onto the rue des Sarts and the cemetery is located 100 metres along this road.
Visiting Information
Visitors should note that this site is open every day from 08:00 to 16:00hrs
Wheelchair access to site possible - maybe by an alternative entrance.
Historical Information
Marcinelle New Communal Cemetery was used during the German occupation, and later, after the Armistice, by Commonwealth forces.
The cemetery contains 59 Commonwealth burials of the First World War, 10 of them unidentified. There are also 27 French graves and 329 German war graves. Of the German burials 98 are unidentified and a Special Cross names 44 of those known to be buried among the unidentified in this cemetery.
Total Burials: 416.
Commonwealth Identified Casualties: United Kingdom 34, Australia 14, Canada 1. Total 49.
Commonwealth Unidentified Casualties: 10.
Identified German Casualties: 231.
Unidentified German Casualties: 98.
French Casualties: 27.
Commonwealth plot was designed by William Harrison Cowlishaw
Dedications
17814 Battery Quartermaster Serjeant William Walter Talbot, 4th Brigade Ammunition Column, Royal Horse Artillery
9th May 1919, aged 41.
Remembered by Rick, Geoffrey and Wendy Talbot, his grandchildren
Images in this gallery © Johan Pauwels
Captain
Clarence Cecil Hains
Australian Army Medical Corps.
14th April 1919, aged 25.
Grave Ref: L228A
Son of Henry and Selena Jane Hains. Native of Hurstville, Sydney, New South Wales.
Clarence Cecil Hains
Australian Army Medical Corps.
14th April 1919, aged 25.
Grave Ref: L228A
Son of Henry and Selena Jane Hains. Native of Hurstville, Sydney, New South Wales.
18663 Corporal
Richard Walter Parry
13th Field Company, Australian Engineers
26th April 1919, aged 34.
Grave Ref. No. B. 281A.
Son of Richard and Bessie Parry; husband of Doris Parry, of Chapel St., Marrickville, Sydney, New South Wales.
His headstone bears the inscription "In Cherished Memory Of My Dear Husband & Soldier Daddy Of Kenneth"
I
Richard Walter Parry
13th Field Company, Australian Engineers
26th April 1919, aged 34.
Grave Ref. No. B. 281A.
Son of Richard and Bessie Parry; husband of Doris Parry, of Chapel St., Marrickville, Sydney, New South Wales.
His headstone bears the inscription "In Cherished Memory Of My Dear Husband & Soldier Daddy Of Kenneth"
I
12th May 1919. Seven unidentified Australian soldiers gathered around three German timber dummy tanks salvaged by the Australian War Records Section. These tanks were used by both sides and were designed to mislead the other as to the point of concentration for tanks and draw fire. Note the soldier on the far left has a wound stripe on his left sleeve.
Pictures in this gallery © Werner Van Caneghem
The Australian 24th Battalion Band playing in the Rue de Beaumont, Marcinelle.
German prisoners unloading goods from trucks at a Red Cross depot, Marcinelle.
13th February 1919; An outdoors group portrait of unidentified Signal Officers of the Headquarters, and No 1 and 2 Cable Sections of the 2nd Australian Divisional Signal Company. In the front row a captain and a major (first and second from the left) are both wearing a Military Cross ribbon. In the second row a 2nd lieutenant (centre) is wearing a Military Medal ribbon.
5th March 1919; An outdoors group portrait of the 2nd Australian Divisional Australian Rules Football Team. Identified from left to right, back row: 6314 Company Sergeant Major (CSM) Walter Pullar Cameron, 23rd Battalion; Lieutenant (Lt) Cyril Bruce Hislop, MC, 23rd Battalion; and 2nd Lt Frederick Howell, MC, 22nd Battalion.
Second row: [No men were identified in this row.]
Front row: Lt John Alfred Phillips, 23rd Battalion; unidentified; 1738 Lt Joseph Lindley Scales, DSO MM, 24th Battalion; and next two men are unidentified.
18th December 1918; Captain Clarence Cecil Hains, Regimental Medical Officer (left), dressing a severe wound sustained by a Belgian boy, who had incurred the injury while playing with a German hand grenade. Holding the boy's arm is 4222 Private A. Bowman, Medical Orderly. The house is at Rue de la Montagne, Charleroi. Captain Hains would be accidentally killed in April 1919 by an ammunition explosion.
Memorial to the fallen German soldiers during the Battle of Charleroi, August 1914 on the heights of Charleroi. © IWM Q 87546
The memorial today - It was demolished on 11th November 1919; ©Jmh20 on Wikimedia Commons.
10th April 1919; An informal portrait of unidentified Australian soldiers gathered on and around the horse drawn baggage wagon which was following men marching to the Australian Demobilisation Camp at Charleroi.
