John Victor Matthews

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Grave/Memorial:  		Matthews, John V

10 August 1897, Woking, Surrey

James and Edith (née Bloom)

2nd Battalion, Coldstream Guards

20011

Private

24 September 1917, Belgium, age 20

Bleuet Farm Cemetery, Belgium: I. E. 37 		   

Biography:
John Victor ‘Jack’ Matthews was born on 10 August 1897, in Woking Surrey. He was the son of James Edwin, a general labourer,
and Edith Mary (née Bloom). He had eight sisters and a brother.

Jack joined the Coldstream Guards in 1915. He was deployed to France, with the 2nd Battalion, in March 1917.

John Victor Matthews was killed on 24 September 1917, during the Battle of the Menin Road. He is buried in, grave I. E. 37,
within Bleuet Farm Cemetery, Belgium.




Bleuet Farm was used as a dressing station during the 1917 Allied offensive on this front.

The cemetery was begun in a corner of the farm and was in use from June to December 1917, though a few of the burials are of later date. Two graves were
brought into the cemetery after the Armistice from isolated positions close by.

There are now 442 First World War burials in the cemetery and nine from the Second World War, all dating from the Allied retreat to Dunkirk in May 1940.
The cemetery was designed by Sir Reginald Blomfield.