Roll of Honour

Thomas Arch was a house painter’s labourer who joined the 1st Battalion Prince of Wales Own (West Yorkshire Regiment) shortly after the war started in 1914. His parents came to Yorkshire from Broomfield in Staffordshire in the 1860s and his father was working as a labourer in an ironworks in north Leeds when Thomas was born in 1879. The family later moved to Chadwick Street in Hunslet. Thomas was living in the Kings Cross area of Halifax in 1909 when he married Edith Fretwell who was born in Doncaster. They probably met in Hunslet where she had moved with her family and was working as a machinist for a tailor. Their daughter Annie was born in 1910 followed by Grace in 1913. It’s unclear why Thomas came to be on the Oulton-with-Woodlesford memorial. It’s possible the family had moved to the area shortly before the war for him to work on new houses built by Armitage’s or the Henry Briggs company for their workers at the quarry, brickworks and colliery. Thomas died of his wounds on 29 June 1915. His battalion had been under “intense” shelling in the Ypres Salient in Belgium. He is buried at the New Irish Farm Cemetery in Ypres. Edith was living at 2 Applegarth in 1921 and remarried Sam Marsh the same year. From 1922 to 1925 they were at 1 Applegarth.

Walter Atha. Quarry labourer. Primrose Yard. Born in Bridlington in 1889 but baptised at Rothwell. Father Jonas Atha, described as a mill owner in Hull on birth register. Appears to be Jonas Atha, a schoolmaster from Adel who married Emily Titterington at St. Peter’s, Hunslet Moor in 1888. In 1891 Walter was living at Primrose Yard in Oulton with widow Lydia Wright and her son John, a corn miller. He appears to be at the same address in 1911 living with Alice Wright. She was looking after a “nurse child” so it looks as though Walter was orphaned or fostered when he was a baby. He died 4 April 1917. Private, Prince of Wales’s Own (West Yorkshire Regiment).  1/7th Battalion. Killed in action. Laventie Military Cemetery, La Gorgue, France.

Arthur Atkinson. Served in three units. King’s Own Yorkshire Light Infantry. Private. 47504. Labour Corps. Sapper 444128. Royal Engineers. Sapper. 363736. Was transferred to Royal Engineers 1st Base Park Company on 15 March 1919. Quarryman in 1913. Born 1891 at East Ayton near Scarborough. Father William Atkinson, woodman. Mother Rachel Ann Lownsbrough. 7 siblings. In 1911 Arthur was a farm labourer still in East Ayton near Scarborough. Married Annie Hutchinson in 1913. Died in February 1920 and was buried at Oulton. Had been a horse driver and shunter for the Midland Railway before he enlisted at Wakefield in May 1917, age 25 years and 9 months. After training was posted to France on 13 November 1917 and sailed from Folkestone to Boulogne. Discharged on 29 November 1919 with 40 per cent disability, diagnosed as neuritis and VDH, valvular disease of the heart, and given a weekly pension of 16 shillings with an allowance for his wife and children. There was a mix up with his transfer to the Royal Engineers and he wrote a letter after getting home saying he had served with the 830th Area Employment Artizan Company but was then attached to the 1st Base Park Company in France. When he was admitted to the 35th General Hospital in France on 26 June 1919 he was told he had been transferred to the 1st Base Park Company RE and was then sent to the Wharncliffe War Hospital in Sheffield. He was discharged from there on 10 October 1919 and sent to Nottingham for a remittance. However he was sent a warrant saying he should go to Ripon using his previous army number. As a result of the bureaucracy he hadn’t received any of his furlough pay. Address Farrer Lane, Oulton. Children – Edward Lownsbrough 1914, Enid, 1915, Lily 1918 in Leeds. Annie’s address was Bishopgarth, Wakefield in 1920. She received a pension for herself and her children. They lived at 3 Farrer Lane after the war. Edward married Irene Harris in 1937 and they were living at Lynwood, The Grove, Little Preston in 1939. Annie Atkinson died in 1965 and is buried with her husband. 

George Reginald Audsley.

William Henry Blacker. Born 1879 at Womersley. Pit sinker. 9862. Killed in action 6 Apr 1915. Private. Prince of Wales’s Own (West Yorkshire Regiment). 2nd Battalion. Killed in action. Buried at the Cabaret-Rouge Cemetery. In 1911, pit sinker, 31 at 11 Airedale Grove with Emily Annie (nee Brook daughter of a glass bottle maker), 26, born Knottingley, William, 2 and John Newell Blacker 2 months, both born Woodlesford. A third child, Olive, was born in 1909 and baptised at Woodlesford but died shortly afterwards. George born 1912, Wilfred 1913, and Fred 1915. Widow remarried on 23 December 1916 to labourer Frank Farrar who lived at 7 Airedale Terrace. William Henry Blacker grew up at Armitage Yard off Commercial Street in Rothwell where his father, George Esau Blacker from Cowick was a bricklayer then road repairer for the council. Previously he had been an agricultural labourer in the Goole area. William Henry’s brother Arthur was a miner and his sister Ada work at Seanor’s match factory. In 1901 William Henry was working with his father as a road repairer. 

John George Borman. Born Woodlesford in December 1877. King’s Own (Yorkshire Light Infantry). 9th Battalion. He died of wounds 24 March 1918. Father John Harrison Borman, a brewery labourer. Married Elizabeth Ellen Dennison in 1899. Her father Fred Dennison, a mason. Red brick kiln fireman at Armitage’s brickworks. In 1911 living on Eshald Place. They had two children, George Dennison Borman and Nellie Borman. 

Albert Britton. The Hollins. Born 1884. Died 11 Jul 1916. Private. Border Regiment. 7th Battalion. Died of wounds. Enlisted soon after outbreak of war. Had been in France about a year. Was wounded and died 2 days later without regaining consciousness in the Boulogne hospital. Had been a pit pony driver.

Charles Ernest Britton. The Hollins. Born 1886. Died 1 Jul 1916. Private. Prince of Wales’s Own (West Yorkshire Regiment). 10th Battalion. Killed in action. Started work making firelighters at Seanor’s works in the old paper mill at Woodlesford then became a labourer at the copper works at Stourton. Lived with his brother Albert and sister Hannah who was married to Charles Hall, a brewery labourer.

George William Brook. 57466. Private. Born in 1899 at Castleford and baptised at Allerton Bywater. Father Matthew Brook was also born in Castleford in 1874. He had followed in his father’s footsteps as a ship or boat builder but later worked as a colliery carpenter. At Oulton church in 1897 he married Eleanor Alice Rhodes, the grand daughter of the Oulton quarry owner Israel Rhodes. Matthew’s family moved to live at 12 Back Claremont Street in the early 1900s so George William would have been a pupil at Oulton St. John’s school. He enlisted at Pontefract Barracks and may have served with a Yorkshire regiment before being transferred to 1st 10th Battalion of the Manchester Regiment. He was killed in action on 28 September 1918. He was buried at the Vis-en-Artois Cemetery in France. Matthew Brook was still alive in 1939 living with his daughter on Charles Street in Castleford. He died in 1943.

John Albert Cane. 15754. Born 1889 in the Kensington district in London. Died of influenza on 14 July 1918. Buried at Oulton. York and Lancaster Regiment. C Company 21st Division. He had been with 3rd York and Lancs when he died. Accidentally wounded on left wrist on 19 June 1916. Travelled on No 17 ambulance train. Had been enlisted for 1 year and 9 months at that point and had served 9 months in the field. Lance corporal. He was recorded at the Beckett Park hospital in Leeds between 2 November 1916 and his death suggesting he may have died at the Swillington House war hospital. Another possibility is that he moved north before the war to work at Bentley’s brewery. His burial record gives an address on Ride Avenue at Hebburn on Tyne. In 1911 he was working as an electrician and living with his widowed mother and younger sister in the Paddington area. His father, James Cane, born at Kidderminster, had been a publican at the Sportsman’s Arms at Wing in Buckinghamshire before becoming the caretaker of a block of mansion flats in Maida Vale. 

Osbert Leveson Calverley.

Osbert Leveson Calverley. Born 1899 at Oulton Hall. Son of Major Edmund Leveson Calverley, staff major of the British Expeditionary Force. Studied at Appleby College in Oakville, Canada, and at the Royal Military College of Canada. Osbert Leveson Calverley was just 19 years old when he died in a flying accident in 1918 a few months before the end of the Great War. He spent his childhood in South Africa where his father worked as a librarian and archivisit. In 1912 the family moved to Canada to start a new life as farmers in Ontario but at the start of the war in 1914 Osbert’s father and his older brother, Hugh Salvin Calverley, returned to England to join the military. Osbert travelled to Texas to take a six week flying course in 1917 and he too came to the UK in January 1918 to enlist in the Royal Flying Corps which merged with the Royal Naval Air Service to become the Royal Air Force in April 1918. Osbert was flying with the 124th Squadron from Fowlmere near Royston in Hertfordshire and had the rank of Second Lieutenant when his plane crashed in Cambridgeshire on 12 July 1918. He was buried in the Cambridge city cemetery and is remembered on the Oulton and Woodlesford war memorial and on memorials in Canada.

Frederick Carter. Born 1888. Brewer’s labourer in Bradford before the war. His father, George Carter, ran a grocer’s shop on Midland Street in the 1890s. Records indicate that the shop had originally been in the hands of his wife Sarah’s father, Edwin Cockerham. He had originally been a stone mason. In 1901, probably because of a lack of space, Fred and his brother William were living with their aunt, Louisa Cockerham, on Clements Street. She married Howson McWilliam, a clerk at Bentley’s brewery, the same year. Meanwhile Fred’s father continued to run the shop at the end of White Street. No records of Fred Carter’s military service have survived but the most likely death in the records is that of a Frederick Carter (No 11334), a private in the 7th Battalion, Yorkshire Regiment, who died on 8 February 1917.

Thomas Henry Craven. Died 23 October 1916. Born 1893 in Woodlesford. Father Joseph Craven was landlord of the White Hart. His mother’s maiden name was Elsie Maud Jane Bates. She was born at Caerleon in Monmouthshire but had travelled around the country with her father, Henry William Bates, a schoolmaster. After the death of Joseph she remarried in 1914 to clerk John Beeston Hare .  Thomas Henry was still at school, age 17 in 1911 suggesting he had won a scholarship to a secondary school in Leeds and may have become a teacher. He died 22 October 1916. Royal Scots Fusiliers. 6/7th Battalion. Killed in action.

Walker Crossland. 6 French Street. Brewery labourer. Born out of wedlock in 1879. Mother Emma Crossland married widower John Walker, a joiner, in 1884. Emma’s father John Crossland was also a joiner and was an unemployed widower living with his daughter and John Walker on French Street in 1881. In 1871 John Crossland was working as a colliery joiner and lived at Little Preston. Walker Crossland married Emily Edwards from Rothwell in 1901. They had five children. He enlisted at Rothwell in May 1916. 5 feet 9 inches. Initially posted as a reservist to 13th (R) Battalion. K.O.Y.L.I. (Miners Pioneers) but on 1 July 1916 after his medical was transferred to Duke of Wellington’s (West Riding) Regiment, 2nd Battalion. After training was sent to France on 19 October 1916. Attached to Works Battalion at Maurepas on Boxing Day 1916. Had flu in February 1917. Killed in action 9 April 1917. Emily awarded pension of 31 shillings 3d. Arras Memorial.

Thomas Dalton. Believed to have been born in 1878. Son of Thomas Dalton from Liverpool who married Harriet Britton from Woodlesford in 1875. Thomas senior was a master slater and in 1901 the family were living on West Street in Castleford. Harriet was born in about 1853 and was the daughter of William Britton, a bricklayer. He had died by 1861. If this is the correct Thomas Dalton then it’s not clear why his name is on the Oulton memorial unless he had moved to Woodlesford to work or live with relatives. In 1901 he was still living with his parents and siblings on Wilson Street in Castleford and working with his father as a slater. 

Wilfred Dunwell. 30 Church Street. Miner. Born 1888. Died 9 Apr 1917. Private, Prince of Wales’s Own (West Yorkshire Regiment), 2/7th Battalion, the Leeds Rifles. Killed in action. 266440. Wilfred was the son of  miner William Dunwell and blacksmith’s daughter Elizabeth Woolley who married at Leeds in 1872. Elizabeth gave birth to 12 children, nine of whom survived into adulthood. Wilfred married widow Catherine Skirrow, nee Elliot, from Rothwell in 1910. By the time of his death they had three sons, William, Abraham and Jack. Catherine was awarded a widow’s pension. In November 1919 she married a widowed miner called Charles Jubb and with him she had six more children whilst living at Albert Yard off Church Street in Woodlesford. She was widowed again in 1928.

Walter Dunwell. Taylor’s Yard. Born 1897. Died 21 Nov 1917. Rifleman. Prince of Wales’s Own (West Yorkshire Regiment),  2/7th Battalion. Killed in action. 266379. Brother of Wilfred Dunwell. In 1901 Walter was a first prize winner in the infants department at Woodlesford school for a high number of attendances. In 1911 he was living with his widowed mother at Taylor’s Yard on Church Street and working as a pony driver underground. Also there was his older brother, William, who also fought in the war and lost a leg in the fighting.  

Hubert Ellis. Born October 1899. Father Arthur Ellis, stone quarry labourer. Private, Prince of Wales’s Own (West Yorkshire Regiment), 2nd Battalion. Regimental number 62489. Working as a butcher with Herbert Boyes in Rothwell and living at Highfield House when he attested at Wakefield on 24 October 1917. 5 feet 5 inches tall. Had flat feet but was deemed able to walk 5 miles. Transferred to 53rd (Young Soldiers) Battalion, Durham Light Infantry on 7 December 1917. Then transferred to 52nd (Grad) Battalion on 8 March 1918. Embarked from Folkestone for Boulogne on 1 May 1918 and was sent to Etaples. Transferred back to the 2nd Battalion, West Yorkshire Regiment.  Killed in action 29 May 1918. Soissons Memorial. 

Ernest Ellis. Born 1896. 13 Claremont Street. Father John Ellis, coal miner. Mother Mary Ann Ellis. Family lived on Leadwell Lane in Carlton in 1901. Brother was Norman Ellis. Errand boy in 1911. Working as a brick maker when he attested in February 1916, age 18 and 10 months. Height 5 feet 6 and a half inches. Embarked from Southampton, disembarked at Le Havre 6 February 1917. Gunner. 84057. Royal Garrison Artillery. Served with 263 Siege Battery at first and was given a field punishment for being absent without a pass for 30 minutes. Was wounded on 20 September 1917 and spent about 5 weeks in hospital. Was with 245 Siege Battery when he died 1 Jan 1918. Killed in action. His effects consisting of letters, photos, cards, a metal ring, a purse, a note book, and a cigarette case, were sent to his father.

John William Ellis. Born  June 25 June 1877 at Woodlesford. Father James, a miner, mother Mary.  In 1881 they lived with her father, John Hughes, a bootmaker on Prince’s Street. They were still there in 1891. Joined the Royal Navy in 1899, initially for 12 years but appears to have stayed on until 1919. He was a fitter and turner. He was invalided out suffering from syphyllis. 269598. Died in the West Riding Asylum at Menston in March 1921 and was buried at Oulton. 

Arthur Farrer. 7 Airedale Terrace. Born Methley 1875. Miner in No 2 pit at Ledston Luck colliery. Single man joined up in 24 September 1915 at Leeds, four months short of his 40th birthday. Letter from colliery manager ?.T. Shaw stated he “worked underground in various capacities,” from 29 March 1915. Attestation papers say he wanted to join a tunnelling company. Was sent to Royal Engineers barracks at Chatham for training and embarked for France on 8 Oct 1915. At first was a tunneller’s mate in 252 Tunnellers’ Company, then promoted to tunneller on 6 November 1915, Lance Corporal on 9 December 1915 and Acting Corporal on 24 April 1917. Was in the Battle of the Somme. Killed in action 27 Dec 1917. Buried in the Red Cross Corner Cemetery at Beugny. Arthur’s captain wrote this letter to his widowed mother the day after his death: “It is with the deepest regret I have to inform you that your son, Corporal A. Farrer, was killed yesterday afternoon. The deceased was struck with a shell and killed instantly while in charge of a party of men in the trenches. Your son has been with me in the company from its formation, and from the outset has been distinguished for his cheerfulness with his men, his reliability in his work, and his bravery and pluck in the most dangerous circumstances. He is missed by all, and the officers, non-commissioned officers and men wish me to convey to you their deepest sympathy with you in this bereavement.” His mother received a separation allowance of 5s. 8d. along with pay of 3s. 6d. Her name was Mary Ann. She came from Ilkeston in Derbyshire and was the only one in the family not born in Methley. Arthur’s effects were sent to her in May 1918 – a pocket knife, two notebooks, a matchbox cover, a purse, a letter, two photographs and rosary beads. He had two older brothers, John William, a boatyard carpenter, probably at Lemonroyd, and George, a miner. His younger brother, Frank, was a mason. Family moved from Woodrow at Methley to Burnell’s Yard off Midland Street in the 1870s and then to Airedale Terrace in the 1890s. Father William probably worked first at Savile colliery at Methley and then Waterloo colliery at Woodlesford or possibly one of the Bower’s pit on the Swillington side of the river. By 1911 he was an invalid. Arthur had two married sisters – Mary Elizabeth Todd who lived at Whitworth Yard in Rothwell, and Celina Walker, Vaux Street in Hunslet. His nephews and nieces were Harry, Gladys, Sylvester, and Alberta Todd; Lily and Connie Farrer; Ivy, May, Clive, Irvin, and Lewis Walker. Statement of family document was witnessed by the Vicar of Woodlesford, Arthur Irvin, in October 1919.

Fred Flockton. Born 1893 at Woodlesford. Lived Bentley Square. Engineer’s apprentice in 1911. Regimental number 15/341. Father William Flockton bricklayer. Died 1 Jul 1916.  First day of Battle of the Somme. Prince of Wales’s Own (West Yorkshire Regiment). 18th Battalion. Killed in action.

William Goward. Railway clerk. Born 1887 at Woodlesford in house close to Anchor Inn on the canal. Son of canal labourer James Goward. Mother Sarah Ann Hirst. Grandfather Thomas Goward originally an agricultural labourer from West Hardwick who became a carter for one of the local stone merchants living at Chadwick’s Row on Quarry Hill in Oulton. William started as a clerk at Woodlesford station in 1901 earning £15 a year. Three years later he moved to Armley where he was a booking and parcels clerk. Later he moved to Wellington station in the centre of Leeds and in 1914 was earning £95 a year. William died 30 Jun 1918. L/Corporal. Queen’s (Royal West Surrey Regiment) 6th Battalion. Killed in action. Had possibly trained to be a pilot. Left £199 in his will.

Herbert Gordon. Born 1884. Mother Annie Walton but brought up by Sarah Ann Abbey on Church Street. Lived with uncle George Walton, joiner, in Potternewton in 1901. Emigrated to Toronto, married in 1910 and and joined a Canadian regiment in July 1915. Date of death unknown.

Henry Hamer.

John Beeston Hare. Brewery clerk. Died 5 Mar 1917. Private. 26923. Age 28. Sherwood Foresters (Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire Regiment). 1/7th Battalion. Killed in action. Foncquevillers Military Cemetery, France. Son of John and Elizabeth Hare, of Woodlesford, Leeds; husband of Elsie Maud Hare, of The White Hart, Woodlesford, Leeds. In 1911 John Beeston Hare was a clerk at Bentley’s brewery. He was born at New Bolingbroke in Lincolnshire and came to Woodlesford with his family in about 1890. His father was a labourer at the brewery. His sister was a clerk at the Co-op and his younger brother was an analytical chemist at the tar distillery in Stourton. At the age of 25 he married widow Elsie Maud Jane Craven, 44, (nee Bates) at Woodlesford church on 8 August 1914. She was the daughter of a schoolmaster and had come to Woodlesford to be a teacher in about 1890. He first husband, Joseph Craven who died in 1912, had been the landlord of the White Hart. Elise continued to run the pub along with her son and two daughters from her first marriage. After John Beeston Hare’s death Elsie remained a widow for the rest of her life and died on Sutton on Forest in 1962 at the age of 92. One of Elsie’s sister, Winnifred Margaret Bates, was also a teacher at Woodlesford school before she married Frank Ferrett, a clerk at Woodlesford station and one of the founders of the local branch of the Labour Party. 

Frederick Hornby. Born Skipton 1889. Lived Station Lane with uncle. Died 3 May 1917. Private. Prince of Wales’s Own (West Yorkshire Regiment).15th Battalion. Killed in action. Formerly Royal Field Artillery. Buried Faubourg-d’Amiens Cemetery, Arras.

Ernest Arthur Higgins. Motor car fitter. Died accidentally 1 Mar 1918. Private. Royal Army Service Corps. Killed in 61st Division Ammunition sub-park in an accident, buried in Ham British cemetery, Muille-Villette. Father Benjamin Wood Higgins.

Rowland Higgins. Leeds Boys’ Modern School. Clerk at the London City and Midland Bank. Died 25 Mar 1918. L/Corporal. Royal Fusiliers (City of London Regiment). 1st Battalion. Killed in action. (Seven sons of architect Benjamin Wood Higgins joined the forces.) Rothwell Courier and Times report, 4 May 1918. Official news has been received of the death in action, on March 25th, of Lance-Corporal Rowland Higgins, Royal Fusiliers, 6th son of Mr. and Mrs. B. Wood Higgins, of Oulton. He was educated at the Leeds Boys’ Modern School, afterwards entering the London City and Midland Bank. He was one of seven brothers who joined the forces, and his elder brother, Private Ernest A. Higgins, was accidentally killed on March 1st., while on active service. General sympathy is felt with the parents and family in their second bereavement, it being only at the recent meeting of the Oulton and District Education Committee that sympathetic reference was made to the death of the eldest son.

George Robert Hullah. Litho artist. Beechgrove House. Died 6 Jul 1916. Private. King’s Own (Yorkshire Light Infantry). 1/5th Battalion. Killed in action.

Henry Hughes. 7 Clement St., New Woodlesford, 12th K.O.Y.L.I. Henry Hughes, born 1879, known as Harry, miner, 32, married Minnie Jenkins, 20, of Roberts Street in 1910. They lived next door to each other in 1901 on Roberts Street. He was a miner. His father Arthur Hughes and family later moved to Church Street. They had originally lived on Princess Street when Harry was born before moving to Cutsyke in about 1884 and then Glasshoughton by 1891. Her father William Jenkins, also miner. In 1911 Harry and Minnie lived with her parents. William Jenkins and his wife came from Dudley in Worcestershire. Harry and Minnie had four children – Agnes, Mary, Arthur and William. Harry probably died in the flu epidemic in 1919 and is buried at Oulton. It’s not known if he was a serving soldier at the time. Could be Harry Hughes 12/64 12th Yorks L.I. Discharged 14 December 1918, British War Medal and Victory Medal. Minnie remarried in 1949 to Robert Hatfield. 

Arthur Hutchinson. Died 11 December 1916. Malta. Private. Royal Army Service Corps. Private, T4/127725, 22nd Reserve Horse Transport Park, Royal Army Service Corps. Born in 1885 at Oulton, father William, a bricklayer’s labourer, mother Elizabeth (nee Jowitt). At rest in Pieta Military Cemetery, Malta. He enlisted at Rothwell on the 11th of December 1915 aged 29 and 8 months. Papers signed by Sergeant R J McAllister. He lived with his parents, William and Elizabeth at Farrer Lane, Oulton, his occupation was a cartman. His eldest brother was Thomas and he was one of 8 children who survived into adulthood. On the 23rd July 1916 he embarked at Devonport for Salonica with the 22nd Reserve Park Expeditionary Force, where he disembarked on the 6th August 1916. He fell ill and was admitted on the 10th November 1916 into No1 Canadian Stationary Hospital, Mudros, Gallipoli suffering from diarrhoea. 4th December he was admitted into Valetta Hospital, Malta from Hospital Ship, Neuralia, the following day he was transferred into Imtarfa Hospital, and died at this hospital of dysentery on the 11th December 1916.

Ernest Hutchinson. Died 2 Dec 1917. Private. King’s Own (Yorkshire Light Infantry). 241895. 2nd Battalion. Killed in action. Enlisted at Rothwell. Born 11 May 1892 and baptised at Oulton church with older sister Annie born in 1888. Ernest was living at home in 1911 and working as a farm labourer. Brother of Arthur Hutchinson. Effects list shows sisters Mary Ann Newton (married miner William Newton 1907), Elizabeth Sayer (married Rowland Sayer 1912, he was a banksman at Water Haigh, lived 21 Quarry Hill in 1911) Annie Atkinson, (married quarryman Arthur Atkinson in 1913, see above), brother Thomas.

George Ernest Lawton. Died 27 May 1918. Age 36. Private. Northumberland Fusiliers. 1/5th Battalion (Territorial). Soissons Memorial. Son of Sam and Emma Lawton, of Oulton, Leeds; husband of Ann E. Lawton, of 7, Bayswater Place, Roundhay Rd., Leeds. Sam was a gardener, born Barwick in Elmet. Lived on Quarry Hill in 1910. Emma born Bradford. George Ernest was born in Whitkirk in 1882. Before the war he was a postman living at Methley Place in Chapel Allerton with wife and daughter Hilda born in 1910. George was already working as a letter carrier in Chapel Allerton in 1901 at the age of 18. 

Ernest McWilliam. Born 1886. Quarry Road and Dobson’s Place Rothwell. Miner. Died 3 Nov 1918. Private. Royal Army Medical Corps (Territorial Force). Died of wounds. Romeries Communal Cemetery Extension. (Name only occurs on Woodlesford School memorial.)

Wilfred Martin. Born 1898. Church Street. Father and brother were agricultural traction engine drivers. Died 15 Sep 1916. Private. Scots Guards. Killed in action. 

Robert Metcalf.

Joseph Barker Mirfin. Joiner. Died 15 Sep 1916. Rifleman. Rifle Brigade (The Prince Consort’s Own). 9th Battalion. Killed in action.

William Mirfin. Died 22 Apr 1917. Sapper. Corps of Royal Engineers. 81st Field Company. Died of wounds.

John William Moore. Born 1882. New Row, Aberford Road. Born 1892. Stone mason. King’s Royal Rifle Corps. 10th Battalion. Died 21 Aug 1917. Verden.

John William Morton. Tobacco clerk. Born 1892. Father was a foreman for the Aire and Calder Navigation. Lived by the canal side at Swillington Bridge.

George Thomas Moss. Grocer and pork butcher with lock up shop on Aberford Road. Born 1854 at Marden in Kent. Lived Airedale Terrace. Served for 27 years in the 1st Life Guards and was awarded a medal for the Sudan campaign in 1884/85 when he was the Regimental Sergeant Major. Served for a further 24 years in the Queens Own Yorkshire Dragoons. Staff Sergeant Major. Was in the reserve when he re-enlisted at Bridlington. Died 17 January 1916 in the UK. Died in the UK. Buried at Oulton.

Sergeant Major Moss.

THE PASSING OF A VETERAN SOLDIER. Yorkshire Evening Post. Monday 17 January 1916.

SERGEANT MAJOR MOSS BURIED TODAY WITH MILITARY HONOURS. 

The many friend of Sergeant Major Moss, the Queen’s Own Yorkshire Dragoons, who was well known in Leeds, will hear with with regret of the old warrior’s death, which occurred from pneumonia at Harrogate. His remains were interred with military honours at Oulton Church this afternoon. 

Sergeant Major Moss had a most interesting military career. He joined the 1st Life Guards over 46 years ago and remained in the Regular forces for 27 years. He served in the Nile Expedition in 1884-5 for tne relief of General Gordon, and 1887 he had the exceptional honour of carrying the Royal Standard behind Queen Victoria in the Jubilee procession. 

In 1890 he was appointed instructor to the “A” Squadron of the Yorkshire Dragoons, a position which he held until April 1901, when he retired. In his day Sergeant Msjor Moss was a crack shot of the Life Guards, and held the cross swords and cross guns. He also won the Sheffield Gun Club’s Cup three years in succession. 

When the War Office issued its invitation to yeomen and civilians to form tho Imperial Yeomanry Volunteers, the sergeant major, who for some years had been drill instructor to the Sheffield Yeomanry, was made recruiting sergeant for Sheffield. Despite being in his 63rd year, he bad been engaged at Harrogate in the training recruits. He leaves a widow, who lives Woodlesford.

Harry Myers.
Harry’s grave at the Anneux British Cemetery near Cambrai in France.

Harry Myers. Born 1898, baptised at St. John’s church, Oulton. Killed in action on Tuesday 8 October 1918. Had lived at Fleet Mills. 161646. Machine Gun Corps, 63rd Battalion. Had been entitled to wear a “wound stripe” from 6 July 1916. Harry’s father, George Myers was born at  Monkhopton in Shropshsire but came from a family that had its roots near Slingsby in North Yorkshire. George had been a labourer at the flint mill at Fleet Mills but was a waggoner at the corn mill by the start of the war. Harry’s older brothers were miners, and a younger brother was the underground horse keeper at Water Haigh colliery in 1939.  

Charles Ernest Nettleton. Born 1880. Married colliery labourer in Featherstone before the war. Died 9 Apr 1917. Sergeant. King’s Own (Yorkshire Light Infantry). 9th Battalion. Killed in action

Colin Nicholson. Born 1888. Private. Scots Guards. Died 12 Nov 1914. Killed in action.

Percy Paley. Died 1 Jul 1916. Private. York and Lancaster Regiment. 13th (Service) (1st Barnsley) Battalion. Killed in action.

Arthur Palfreeman. Born 1895. Died 5 June 1917. Brick kiln labourer. Private. Northumberland Fusiliers. 26th Battalion (Tyneside Irish). Killed in action. Names on the Arras Memorial.

James Parkinson. Miner. Born 1877. Died 27 Sep 1916. Prince of Wales’s Own (West Yorkshire Regiment) 9th Battalion.

War memorial from Woodlesford church.

William H Preen. Milkman. Church Street. Born 1881. Died 2 Oct 1918. Rifleman. Royal Irish Rifles. 1st Battalion. Killed in action. Formerly in Royal Army Service Corps. 

Wilfred Ryder. In 1911 was living with his sister, Jane Clegg, and her husband Herbert at 6 Highfield Lane. Herbert had worked at the brewery but was now a labourer Charlesworth’s Fanny Pit, Wilfred was a labourer at Water Haigh. Born 1892 at Methley. Enlisted at Leeds. Sapper. 185th Tunnelling Company, Royal Engineers. Died of wounds 13 April 1916 at 2/1 High’d casualty clearing station. Buried Cabert-Rouge British Cemetery, Died of wounds. £35 pay and war gratuity of £6 to his mother, Margaret Smith, who had remarried. He had previously been with the Royal Garrison Artillery. His father Jesse was a joiner born in Methley, died 1901. Herbert Clegg’s father, George, had been a self-employed coal leader or merchant living on Church Street. Herbert’s children, William and Mary Clegg, were living at 62 Alma Street in 1939.

Arthur Walker Storey. Born 1893. Pit pony driver. Eshald Place. Died 7 Nov 1918. Egypt. Gunner. Royal Horse Artillery and Royal Field Artillery.

Charles Scurrah. Died 25 Sep 1915. Rifleman. King’s Royal Rifle Corps. 2nd Battalion. Died of wounds.

Herbert Sharpe. Born 1895. Farrer Lane. Groom and then motor driver. Attested 5 October 1915. He had been driving an 8 cylinder cadillac for Major Horace Walter Calverley who was an officer in the Terriorial Force at York. On Calverley’s recommendation Herbert joined the Mechanical Transport Division of the Army Service Corps. He was posted to France. Died of appendicitis on 5 Dec 1916 in the No. 9 General Hospital at Rouen.

Claude Taylor. Born 1889. Died 5 Apr 1916. L/Corporal. East Lancashire Regiment. 2nd Battalion. Killed in action. Tram conductor. Reservist with 7 years military service to his credit. Called up at outbreak of war.

Claude Taylor’s death was reported in one of the Leeds newspapers.

Fred Taylor. Born 1893. Groom. St. John’s Street. Died 1 Jan 1916. Private. Prince of Wales’s Own (West Yorkshire Regiment). 12th Battalion. Killed in action.

George Thompson. Clement Street. Brickworks labourer. Born 1896.

Walter Townend. Died 24 Aug 1916. Gunner. Royal Horse Artillery and Royal Field Artillery. Died of wounds.

Walter Tranmer. Beecroft Yard and Alma Street. Born 1884. Miner. Had served in 7th Battalion Leeds Rifles when he attested and joined the 6th (Service) Battalion West Yorkshire Regiment on 12 Oct 1914. Trained at Grantham but was discharged on 16 Nov 1914, “not likley to become an efficient soldier,” as he had a ruptured inguinal hernia. Must have undergone surgery as he rejoined. Died 26 Jul 1917. Private. Alexandra, Princess of Wales’s Own (Yorkshire Regiment) 2nd Battalion. Killed in action. Ypres.

Wilfred Varley. Eshald Place. Grocer. Died 26 Apr 1918. Private. King’s Own (Yorkshire Light Infantry). 1/4th Battalion. Killed in action.

Clarence Ward’s headstone in the Voormezeele Enclosure No. 3 cemetery near Ieper in Belgium.

Clarence Ward. Born 1893. Killed in action 17 July 1915. 22933 2nd Battalion, K.O.Y.L.I. Enlisted at Newcastle as a member of the Durham Light Infantry 12111. In 1911 miner’s trammer below ground living as a boarder at Calder Grove in  Crigglestone parish. In 1901 Clarence was living with his brothers Alfred and William, sister Hetty Isabel (died 1908) and mother Elizabeth at Bell Hill in Rothwell in the home of Robert Ward (75), described as the children’s grandfather. His death was reported in the Rothwell Courier and Times on 14 August 1915 under the headline WOODLESFORD SOLDIER’S DEATH. Mrs. Ward of 19, Beecroft Yard, Woodlesford, has been informed that her son, Private Clarence Ward (23) of the King’s Own Yorkshire Light Infantry, has been killed in action. In the last letter to his mother, Private Clarence Ward said: “I am in the trenches and expect to be in five more days yet. I am only about 30 yards from the Germans. When I was getting my breakfast this morning a German let fly and hit the top of my sandbags, filling my tea full of dirt. There are plenty of frogs out here, and if you go to a pond just behind our trench you can hear the croaking. Every night they hold some good concerts.” Ward joined the army at the outbreak of the war and has been at the Front since April. He was killed on July 17th. Mrs. Ward has a married son, Private Alfred Ward, also in the K.O.Y.L.I.

James Warwick. Claremont House. Born 1894. Brewery labourer.

William Wass. Aberford Road in 1911, no occupation, age 13. Born 7 July 1895? Baptised at Woodlesford church 1 August 1897. Full name Thomas William Wass. Private in Royal Marines. Died from dysentery 21 August 1915 on H.M. Hospital Ship Delta. The ship was used to evacuate wounded from the Gallipoli campaign. Medical Unit Royal Naval Division. Buried at sea. On Chatham Royal Navy Memorial. It states his age as 18 suggesting he may have lied about his age when he joined up. Mother Jane lived Midland View, Oulton when he died. Brother of Albert Wass. Father Thomas Scaife Wass was a wagonner for stone quarry. 

Joseph Watson. Quarry Hill. Born 1878. Labourer at Hall’s quarry. Died 1918. Private. King’s Own Yorkshire Light Infantry.

William Watson Wild. Brick presser. Pottery Lane. Born 1896. Died 3 Jul 1916. Private. 12th Battalion King’s Own Yorkshire Light Infantry. Doullens Communal Cemetery.

Marshall Ivan Westmoreland. Railway Cottages. Died 27 Nov 1917. L/Corporal. Grenadier Guards. 3rd Battalion. Killed in action. Cambrai Memorial. Military Medal.