The Newlove family

Entry for the Newlove brothers on the Commonwealth War Graves Commission database

One family’s sacrifice

Many New Zealand families suffered multiple tragedies at Passchendaele. The 1176 names on the Memorial to the Missing at Tyne Cot Cemetery, where most of the New Zealand dead from the Passchendaele attacks are commemorated, include at least five sets of two brothers. One family’s sacrifice was even greater: three Newlove brothers – Charles (aged 41), Edwin (32) and Leslie (22) – were killed in little over a week.

From Takaka, the brothers were part of a family of eight boys. Of the three, only Leslie had married, a month before he embarked. Enlisting in 1916, they had all joined their battalions in France by July 1917. Charles served in the 3rd Auckland Battalion and his brothers in the 2nd Canterbury Battalion.

Charles went missing during the 4 October attack at Gravenstafel Spur. Edwin and Leslie fell during the second attack at Bellevue Spur eight days later. Leslie was probably hit about 45 metres after he started moving forward, and he disappeared into the mud. How Edwin met his end will never be known, but his body was later carried out and buried behind the jumping-off line. His grave site was lost in the subsequent fighting. If his brothers' bodies were ever recovered, they could no longer be identified. They may be among the 322 unidentified New Zealand victims of the Passchendaele attacks buried in Tyne Cot Cemetery, close to where they fell. For their mother in Takaka, the three weeks following the battle must have been a searing experience as news arrived periodically of the deaths of her sons.