Monthly Archives: July 1917

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 [...]

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 [...]