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So far gary has created 28 blog entries.

John Robert Larner

John Robert Larner was born on 31st January 1890, the second child of Robert and Francis Larner. He was baptised soon after birth, at St James the Less church, on 20th February. The family lived at Oakenhead Wood which, at that time, would have been a relatively short walking distance from the church, down the [...]

By |2020-09-14T13:31:12+01:00July 25th, 1918|East Lancashire Regiment, Soldiers Stories|0 Comments

The Spanish flu pandemic of 1918-1919.

Before Rossendale and the nation could think of getting back to ‘normal’ after the war, a new, deadly, silent threat appeared during 1918. It was a lethal virus that attacked soldiers both in the trenches and returning home and the population in Britain. The new, deadly, silent threat was the ‘Spanish flu’ virus, a pandemic [...]

By |2020-09-14T13:31:12+01:00June 22nd, 1918|After the War, Life at Home|0 Comments

Samuel Evans

Samuel Evans was born in Burnley in 1891 to William and Isabella Evans, both of whom had moved to the town from Cheshire and Cumberland respectively, to work in the cotton industry. The 1891 census shows Isabella’s wider family were in Burnley as well and it was at some point prior to the turn of [...]

By |2020-09-14T13:31:12+01:00April 24th, 1918|East Lancashire Regiment, Soldiers Stories|0 Comments

Joseph Edward Ashworth

Joseph Edward Ashworth was born in Rawtenstall on 18th March 1895, the second child of Edward and Susannah Ashworth. It seems that Susannah died at, or shortly after, Joseph’s birth and some two years later Edward re-married, to Mary, an Irish catholic from County Mayo, whose influence may have led to both Joseph and his [...]

By |2020-09-14T13:31:12+01:00April 4th, 1918|East Lancashire Regiment, Soldiers Stories|0 Comments

Ignatius Holloran

Ignatius Holloran was born on 1st February 1892, the eldest son of George and Margaret Holloran who lived at Springfield View, Clowbridge (the row of houses on the main Burnley road, some demolished, which now includes The Beijing Chinese restaurant). Although their home was just within the borough of Burnley, where Ignatius’ birth was registered, [...]

By |2020-09-14T13:31:12+01:00March 12th, 1918|Dublin Fusiliers, Soldiers Stories|0 Comments

James Nerney and Thomas Regan

On 5th September 1897, within four weeks of his birth, James Nerney was baptised into St James the Less church by the parish priest, Fr Peter Klein. Just six months later, on 6th March 1898, Fr Klein baptised Thomas Regan, two weeks after his birth. It is almost certain that the two families knew each [...]

Albert Hunt

Albert Hunt, the grand-father of our parishioner David Pilling, was a ‘Bury lad’. One of four children, after leaving school Albert quickly progressed from being a grocer’s assistant to grocery shop manager and in 1909 married Margaret (Maggie). In early 1917, at the age of 30 and with two young daughters, Albert was called up [...]

By |2020-09-14T13:31:12+01:00September 6th, 1917|Lancashire Fusiliers, Soldiers Stories|0 Comments

William Manning

William Manning was born on 13th January 1896, one of seventeen children to Michael and Annie, both of whom had settled in the town from Ireland some twenty years earlier. They, like many from Ireland in the post-famine years, came and found work in what were busy, labour intensive, local industries. At the time of [...]

By |2020-09-14T13:31:12+01:00July 31st, 1917|East Lancashire Regiment, Soldiers Stories|0 Comments

John and Joseph Lord  

In the 25th August 1917 edition of the Rossendale Free Press, John and Mary Lord, of 41, York Street, Crawshawbooth, wrote a short poem to the second of their six sons to be killed in action in France, along with a prayer to God, for them both to rest in peace: ‘He sleeps beside his [...]

By |2020-09-14T13:31:12+01:00July 31st, 1917|East Lancashire Regiment, Soldiers Stories|0 Comments

William Cowell

At 19 years of age, William Cowell is one of the youngest of the 25 parishioners killed in the war. His military service lasted for little more than 8 months and like many young men, he was killed in his first encounter with the enemy on the Western Front battlefields. William Cowell, born on 8th [...]

By |2020-09-14T13:31:12+01:00November 18th, 1916|East Lancashire Regiment, Soldiers Stories|0 Comments
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