AFTER nearly 100 years lying in an unmarked grave, a First World War soldier was yesterday (Wednesday) honoured with a headstone, thanks to a local history society and The Northern Echo.

Private Edward Pratt, of the Durham Light Infantry, died of his wounds in 1918 after he’d been discharged from the army as unfit for service, and so did not get an official headstone. Because his widow died four years later, leaving their three young children as orphans, his grave in Darlington’s West Cemetery was never marked.

That wrong was righted yesterday when, surrounded by three generations of his descendants and in the company of two mayors and an MP, his grandchildren unveiled his memorial.

“He’s been lost and now he’s found,” said Harry Moses, chairman of Aycliffe Village Local History Society at the end of the ceremony.

Two years ago, the society set out to uncover the stories of all the 13 First World War soldiers whose names are carved on the village war memorial.

But Pte Pratt proved elusive. The society’s researchers – David and Elizabeth Moses, Vivien and David Ellis and Mr Moses – tracked down his war record which showed how he’d been a quarryman in the village before joining the DLI. It showed that he’d been injured three times on the Western Front.

In March 1916, he suffered “mild” gunshot wounds to his neck and leg. After three months recuperation in Aycliffe, he went back to the front.

In September 1916, he was hit by gunshot in the shoulder. After another recuperation in Aycliffe, he went back to the front.

In October 1917, his trench collapsed on him during a bombardment. He was returned to Aycliffe and his wife, Margaret, and their three children aged under five, suffering from a brain injury, “optic atrophy” and partial paralysis.

This time there was no recuperation. He was a wreck of the fit man who had answered his country’s call two years earlier. So, on May 21, 1918, he was discharged from the Army as unfit for service.

He never recovered, dying on September 15, 1918, in Darlington’s Greenbank Hospital, aged 29. His death certificate stated that cause of death was “paraplegia and exhaustion”; the notice in The Northern Echo said he “died of wounds”.

When Margaret, his widow, died in 1922, his three children disappeared from Aycliffe, and for the researchers the trail went cold. They contacted Echo Memories, and the story in February 2014 brought an immediate response.

“I couldn’t believe it,” said Margaret Prest, Pte Pratt’s grand-daughter. “All the facts fitted. I read it and I was crying. My mother knew that her father had died in the war, and she had a photograph, but she was only two and she never knew where he was buried.”

The researchers took Margaret, who lives in Darlington, to the spot in West Cemetery. “It was just grass and mud – it was so sad the way he was put in the ground and forgotten,” said Margaret. “Now we’ve found him and I’m over the moon. I’m so grateful to the Aycliffe History Society and the Echo.”

The researchers presented their evidence to the Commonwealth War Graves Commission which spent ten months verifying it before agreeing that Pte Pratt deserved a proper headstone, which Margaret and her brother, Stephen Gibson, unveiled it yesterday.

“We are really, really honoured that everyone came, including the MP for Darlington and the mayors of Darlington and Great Aycliffe,” said Margaret. “It is a lovely tribute to him.”

The youngest of the 20 family members present was 11-year-old Harrison Bond, Pte Pratt’s great-great-grandson. “It is quite emotional and overwhelming,” he said.

MP Jenny Chapman said: “The work of the history society and the Echo has been quite remarkable – it is a wonderful story, and it has been a very moving ceremony which is a fitting conclusion to it.”

David Lewis, who led the research, said: “It is a fantastic story which has taken a lot of hard work, and we are still trying to trace his Canadian descendants. One of his sons was put on a ship at the age of 15 and became a labourer in Ontario.”

As the ceremony ended, the skies darkened and a little light rain fell, but even though the brilliant white headstone was surrounded by heavy trees, it seemed to glow in the gloom. One of the vivid red wreaths at its foot read: “For a soldier almost forgotten. Remembered now.”