3/7th Battalion, Worcestershire Regiment
James Pass was born in Bromsgrove, Worcestershire in the third quarter of 1885, the son of Rachael and the late James Pass, of Stoke Heath, Bromsgrove.
As with so many members of the Army in the Great War no Service Record has survived but Soldiers Died in the Great War states that he enlisted at Worcester whilst residing at Alvechurch in Worcestershire.
According to the 1911 Census his occupation was a farm worker. He was part of ‘C’ Company, 3/7th Battalion, Worcestershire Regiment, a Reserve unit, who arrived in Cheltenham in October 1916.
The Cheltenham Chronicle of 18 November 1916 reported that Private Pass died aged 30 on 12 November 1916 of pneumonia, at the Priory Hospital, Cheltenham and that his funeral was with military honours.
He was buried in Cheltenham Cemetery in a grave which he apparently shares with two others (3231 Private Thomas Loveridge, Gloucestershire Regiment, who died 25 November 1916 and 202638 Private Albert Victor Morton, who died 30 June 1917).
The other soldiers probably died whilst serving in the area and were buried prior and following Pass’s death, respectively.
Double burials were quite common but three graves to one plot is usually only found in battlefield cemeteries and even then rarely. Over the plot the CWGC has erected what may possibly be a unique headstone consisting of three stones merged into one, bearing separate details of each soldier.
Evidently this type of headstone is not unique but is very unusual and the extended headstone performs a similar function to a screen wall commemoration where there are multiple burials in a plot (common in cemeteries which were linked to military hospitals).
Research by Graham Adams 15 December 2014 (revised)