Wallace John Hales and his older brother Charles Wiliam Hales both died in the First World War. They were both aged 20 when they were killed. Wallace was born on 24 November 1896, the son of George and Maria Hales, and lived in Edith Weston. He was a gardener, and joined the lst Battalion Grenadier Guards on 7 January 1915. He went out to France on 13 October 1915, three months after his brother's death, and took part in the Battle of the Somme before being killed during the Third Battle of Ypres (Passchendaele), on 6 August 1917. His battalion was part of 3rd Guards Brigade, fighting on the left hand side of the Ypres/Roulers (Roeselare) railway in the northern part of the battlefield and took part in the assault on the morning of 31 July 1917. The Grenadiers suffered 31 dead and 88 wounded, officers and men. The battalion was relieved the following day and after four days rest, during which the war diary recorded "the Battalion had use of baths," the Grenadiers returned to the forward area. The war diary does not mention any fighting or enemy activity of any kind on 6 August, the day Wallace was reported to have been killed. It may even be he was one of those injured on 31 July and who later died of wounds. George Phillips in Rutland and the Great War says he was buried at Boesinghe, but after the war his grave could not be found and so he is remembered on Panel 9 of the Menin Gate. Both brothers are remembered on the war memorial inside the church at Edith Weston and also on family memorials inside the village cemetery.