Help needed to identify WW1 soldiers in £1 photo

Adrian Maasz has been trying to identify the men for more than five years

A man is seeking help to identify the soldiers in a photo he bought in a charity shop for £1.

Adrian Maasz has already identified about 75% of the men in the image, which depicts the 1915 military officer class of Wadham College, Oxford.

He is attempting to uncover the names of the remaining faces - including six from the Durham Light Infantry (DLI).

The photo was taken a few months before many would be sent to the Battle of the Somme and where some would die, Mr Maasz said.

He said he had been working on the project for more than five years.

'Key breakthrough'

Mr Maasz, from Suffolk, has discovered that about 40% of the men he has identified so far died during the war.

One of them was killed on the first day of the Battle of the Somme, he said.

The first day of the Battle of the Somme on 1 July, 1916, saw 19,240 British soldiers killed - the deadliest day in the history of the Army

Mr Maasz said a World War One internet forum had been a "massive help" in identifying the soldiers.

"It's becoming a real sort of social history project," he said.

He said one key breakthrough was when a PhD student on the Great War Forum reached out to say he had found a list of all the men in that year's military officer programme from Oxford University's archives.

This meant the list of names simply had to be linked to the 48 faces in the photo, Mr Maasz said.

'Not everyone died'

Below are the names of the DLI men who are yet to be identified, as well as a gallery of their faces:

• Alan Wynne Apperley, who was born in South End in Durham in 1885

• John Cook, from Hartlepool, who was 25 when the photo was taken

• John Williams, from Yorkshire, who was 26 during the course

• Vere Leopold Dunstan Beart, from London, who was 21

• William Dunbar Anderson, from Newcastle, who was 27

Two men, AG Brown and JH Kearns, were recorded as sick on the list found by the PhD student, but Mr Maasz has not been able to determine which regiments they were linked to.

He believes one of them is the mystery sixth person from the DLI.

Mr Maasz used the lapels and caps worn by the men to link each of them to a specific regiment.

The largest group, made up of 10 men, belonged to the DLI.

Seeking help from the men's loved ones on the war forum, as well as Durham archives, he has identified four of them so far.

"Not everyone died in the war," he said.

For example, one of the DLI men Mr Maasz has learned about, but has not been able to put a face to, was Alan Apperley.

Mr Maasz said he believed Mr Apperley survived the war, married in 1922 and settled in Tynemouth, North Tyneside.