Barnsley, Zion Baptist Church, Pitt Street West, FWW Roll of Honour

Poster for the talk at Barnsley Town Hall

Barnsley Archives have been indexing their Non-Conformist Records for the past year or so, and there was recently a talk at Barnsley Town Hall about their progress. (1) The records fill many boxes in the Archives Store and funding was awarded to permit employment of an extra staff member to sort and catalogue the records. The speaker related his progress and explained that the online catalogue has been updated to reflect his work.

In February of this year, whilst researching a man from the sample for my study of First World War Absence from Commemoration in Barnsley, I found a newspaper cutting which noted that the name of Private Percy Featherstone, who was reported Missing Presumed Dead on 13 August 1916, appeared on the Roll of Honour at the Barnsley Zion Baptist Church on Pitt Street West. (2) Private Featherstone had previously been thought to be absent from any known memorial in the Barnsley Borough, hence his inclusion in my sample.

A Roll of Honour was generally a working document, updated throughout the war as men enlisted and/or were wounded, killed or discharged. Where the Rolls of Honour survive they are not usually the original, rather a final version, rewritten after the war with all the men in alphabetical order, those who served and returned and those who lost their lives, and often with some mark (a star or cross) indicating that a man had been killed. They are usually written or printed on paper, in a decorative border, and framed under glass. In some cases the Roll of Honour accompanies a permanent war memorial, but not always.

I hadn't been aware of this church previously, and sure enough when I looked into it I discovered that it had closed in 1947 and was demolished in 1984.  The church on Pitt Street West had been preceded by a smaller building on Parker Street, which is still in existence, although now as a residential building. (3) In the 1930s the Parker Street building was a church of the Swedenborgians. The area where the Pitt Street West Baptist Church once stood is a grassy bank between two roads.

1930s map of the area either side of Racecommon Road, Barnsley.
Parker Street is top left, and Pitt Street West is lower right.
(from Digimaps - via my University of Wolverhampton account)

This led me to do a search of the online newspapers on Find My Past to see if I could find any more references to this previously unknown memorial. I found a mention of a memorial service held for James Downend and George Bower at Zion Baptist on Sunday 13 August 1916. (4) Further to that I found a notice announcing a memorial service was to be held for Percy Featherstone on 3 September 1916 (it actually reads 'Sunday next', which but judging from other notices this usually means the next Sunday, not the Sunday following). (5) But neither of these pieces mentioned the church's Roll of Honour.

The only other mention of the Barnsley Zion Baptist Roll of Honour (that I could find) was in May 1919 when there was a report of a social reunion.

A Welcome Home
The Pastor (Rev. R.H. Jackson), deacons, and members of the Zion Baptist Church, Pitt Street West, invited all the men whose names appear on the Church's "Roll of Honour", to a social re-union, on Thursday evening week. More that 50 ex-service men and their wives and friends accepted the invitation, and a very enjoyable evening was spent. [The report continues with details of the speeches and songs at the event.] (6)

I find the phrasing of this article a little confusing - the Barnsley Independent came out on a Saturday, so did Thursday week mean two days before the newspaper appeared, or the Thursday the week before that? Also, did 'more than 50' mean a total of 50 ex-servicemen plus their guests or a total of 50 attendees including the ex-servicemen and their wives and their friends? What about widows or the parents of deceased men, were they invited? We know from the cuttings mentioned above that at least three men connected to the church were killed. 

The church obviously had a working list of the men 'whose names appear' - hopefully some evidence of that will have survived in the church's records, which have been deposited in Barnsley Archives.  I intend to search at the archives for any mention of the Roll of Honour or a permanent war memorial connected to this church.  

The following men are those whom, so far, I think may have been remembered at the Zion Baptist on Pitt Street West:

Percy Featherstone
from the Barnsley Chronicle,
2 September 1916, p. 1,
with thanks to Barnsley Archives

Percy Featherstone, aged 22, reported Missing on 13 August 1916, was unmarried, but his father Henry, who had been an 'old Territorial' and had served in the war himself before he was invalided out, and his mother Sarah, did not die until several decades later, so they had plenty of opportunity to have him commemorated on a memorial if they so wished.

The Featherstones lived at 119 St George's Road, Barnsley, in 1916, according to Percy's obituary in the Barnsley Chronicle.  This was roughly 350 yards from the church on Pitt Street West. 

His obituary read:
'Another Barnsley "Terrier" to make the supreme sacrifice is Private Percy Featherstone, C Co., Barnsley Territorials, who was killed last Sunday by a shell. [...] prior to enlisting a few months after the outbreak of war he worked at Kendal Green Colliery. He was born in Racecommon Road, [and] was a member of the Zion Baptist Church, his name appearing upon their Role [sic] of Honour.' (7)

His parents were buried in Barnsley Cemetery, Sarah in 1941, from 119 St George's Road, and Henry in 1950 still from 119 St George's Road.  I wonder if they continued to attend the Zion Baptist Church until it closed?

Was Percy's name inscribed on a framed Roll of Honour or permanent memorial in the Zion Baptist Church? His membership of the church was important enough to mention in his obituary, and a memorial service was held for him there, suggesting a strong affiliation. Did his parents continue to see it each time they visited? 

Percy's parents Henry and Sarah Elizabeth Featherstone were buried in Barnsley Cemetery in plot 9 602 in 1941 (his mother) and 1950 (his father) both from 119 St George's Road in Barnsley, the place where they had lived in 1916. We are not aware of a gravestone on their plot with a memorial inscription to Percy. 

James Downend,  aged 27, who was killed in action on 8 July 1916, had married Jane Godber in 1910 and had one child, Cicely, born in 1911.  The young couple lived at 24 Blenheim Avenue when the 1911 census was taken.  After his death Jane remarried to Ernest Owen in March 1917 and took the government's war gratuity in lieu of her pension. (8) They had at least three children together. She later lived in Royston. Until I found the newspaper reports above, and began to consider the possibility that James was remembered at the Zion Baptist Church, we had thought he was not remembered on any memorial in the Barnsley area besides his parents' gravestone.

Although James' parents put a Death Notice in the Barnsley Chronicle on 5 August 1916 and an In Memoriam notice in the Barnsley Chronicle on 7 July 1917 on behalf of themselves and James' brothers and sisters, nothing appeared in the newspapers from his widow. (9)

James' parents Aaron and Elizabeth Downend were buried in Barnsley Cemetery, she in 1935 and he in 1939. Their gravestone bears an inscription commemorating their son James. This inscription, on a gravestone where the soldier is not buried, makes the gravestone itself, a war memorial. However the inscription must date from later than at least 1935 and more probably after 1939, meaning that James was 'absent' from commemoration (if he was not remembered on the Zion Baptist memorial) for many years.

The Downend family gravestone in Barnsley Cemetery
Photo by Wayne Bywater, July 2018

In Loving Memory Of
ELIZABETH S. DOWNEND
Died Oct. 22nd 1935, aged 80 years
Also AARON DOWNEND
Beloved husband of the above
Died July 10th 1937, aged 81 years
Also JAMES DOWNEND, their son
Who was killed in action in France
July 8th 1916, aged 27 years.

I have begun to notice that when a war widow remarried within a few years of their husband's death there is more likelihood of the man being absent from commemoration. I can only suggest that this may have been due to her remarriage. Maybe the widow had 'moved on' from the death of her husband, or maybe (and I think this is more likely) the second husband suggested that she should have done so, and she acquiesced to his wishes.

It also seems to be the case that whereas an unmarried man was nominated for commemoration by his parents, or if they had predeceased him, by his siblings, in the case of a married man the responsibility for commemoration lay with his wife. I can see associations in commoration with the place the widow lived after the war rather than where the man's parents or surviving family lived. Whatever Jane's wishes in the immediate post war period, by 1937 his brothers and sisters (I assume they requested and paid for their parents' gravestone) felt that they were able to have an inscription to James added to their parents' gravestone. 

Barnsley Independent
12 August 1916
with thanks to Barnsley Archives

George Bower, aged 27, was reported Missing in Action on 1 July 1916, the First Day of the Battle of the Somme. Until the discovery of the newspaper reports about the Zion Baptist Church on Pitt Street West it had been assumed that he was solely commemorated on the 2016 Somme Centenary Artwork. That memorial was unveiled on 1 July 2016 and commemorates 300 men (most of whom) were killed on the First Day of the Battle of the Somme. 

George's parents were Edward and Mary Bower of 15 Bala Street, off Windermere Road in Barnsley. That was nearly a mile from the Zion Baptist Church on Pitt Street West, so they, or maybe just George, must have been quite committed to worship in that place rather than any of the many other religious insitutions in Barnsley at that time, to walk that distance on a regular basis, and for George to have a memorial service held for him there after his death. 

In 1915 the Barnsley Chronicle reported that Edward and Mary had three sons serving in the army. (11) Sadly they were to see two of them die in the war. 

A Death Notice was posted for George in the Barnsley Chronicle on 5 August 1916. It was from his 'father, mother, brothers and sisters'. In the same edition was also a notice from his wife.

'BOWER - In affectionate remembrance of Corpl. George Bower, Signaller, 1/5 Y and L Regt., the beloved husband of Minnie Bower, who was killed in action, July 1st 1916, aged 27 years.

Our tears are mingled with our pride,
What more would mortal give;
With other heroes side by side,
He died that we might live.
- From his loving wife.' (12)

In 1917 and 1918 George's parents also posted In Memoriam notices in the Barnsley Chronicle at the end of June each year. (13) Despite the loving message in her death notice for George in 1916 Minnie posted no In Memoriam notices (certainly not in 1917 and 1918, although I have not checked subsequent years) for her husband. (14)

George Bower had married Minnie Waterworth in 1912 and they had two sons, Edward who died in infancy, and George born in early 1915. The Pension Card for George Bower reports that Minnie remarried on 24 February 1917 to Richard Bentley receiving a remarriage gratuity of £54 6s in July 1917. (15) By the time the 1921 census was taken Minnie had given Richard a daughter and they went on to have two sons in the following years.

1921 census for 103 Summer Lane, Barnsley, the household of Richard and Minnie Bentley
Find My Past, GBC_1921_RG15_22689_0353

Note that in the census return shown above, in row 3, for George Bower aged 6 years, in column (b) it stated that he was Richard Bentley's step-son and in column (e) it was noted that his father was dead. These are the only indications that Minnie had previously been married and that her first husband was dead. 

Why would Minnie not have submitted any In Memoriam notices? Why was George Bower (snr), as far as we know, not commemorated on any war memorial in Barnsley until 2016 (unless he was indeed on a memorial at the Zion Baptist Church)? His father did not die until 1940 and his mother died in 1943. This suggests, as mentioned above, that the responsibility for nominating a man for inclusion on a memorial lay with his widow if he had been married, and for some reason Minnie chose not to carry that through.

George's older brother Sergeant Major Herbert Bower was also killed in the First World War. The dugout in which he was sheltering was hit by a shell on 21 October 1916. (8) He had served in the 'South African War' and on his return (and presumably discharge) from that service had married Lizzie Thompson at St Mary's in Barnsley in 1903. They and their four children had moved to Reddish near Stockport before the war, and Herbert was remembered there rather than in Barnsley. (16)

His parents posted a lengthy Death Notice in the Barnsley Chronicle and In Memoriam notices in 1917 and 1918. (17) Therefore, unless he too is remembered at the Zion Baptist Church, his commemoration in Stockport supports my contention that the responsibility for nominating a man for remembrance on a war memorial was the responsibility of the widow rather than the parents. 

George and Herbert's parents were buried together in Barnsley Cemetery, plot J 639, in 1940 (his father) and 1943 (his mother). Either they do not have a gravestone, or if they do, it bears no memorial inscription to either George or Herbert (as far as we know).

My only hope of resolving the issue of the Roll of Honour and/or a permanent memorial at the Zion Baptist Church on Pitt Street West is to find some mention of its existence in a newspaper or in a document at the Archives. On a later visit to the Archives I requested the Zion Baptist Church on Pitt Street West's minute books, but sadly the the earliest one they had started in 1921. There was only one mention of the war, in connection with arranging a Remembrance Sunday service in 1925.  So that's a dead end I'm afraid. There may be other records, possibly filed with the records of other Baptist churches in Barnsley, if their congregations were merged when the Pitt Street West church was sold. I will keep looking.

Thank you for reading, and if you have any information on the Zion Baptist Church on Pitt Street West, or on any of the families mentioned above I would love to hear from you.
My contact details are on the 'About' page of this website, see the tabs at the top of the page.

References:

(1) Friends of Barnsley Archives, 'Barnsley's Nonconformist Heritage: Their congregations, chapels and records' with James Stevenson, Project Archivist, Monday 11th July 2022 at 11am.
(2) Barnsley Chronicle, 26 August 1916, p. 8.
(3) Barnsley Archives Online Catalogue, A-2257-N/2, https://www.explorebarnsleycollections.com/Record.aspx?src=CalmView.Catalog&id=A-2257-N%2f2
(4) Barnsley Independent, 19 August 1916, p. 5.
(5) Barnsley Chronicle, 2 September 1916, p. 4.
(6) Barnsley Independent, 24 May 1919, p. 5.
(7) Barnsley Chronicle, 26 August 1916, p. 8.
(8) Western Front Association (WFA), 'Pension Records', https://www.westernfrontassociation.com/pension-records/, (accessed 19 October 2022). Access to the pension cards is included in the WFA membership subscription, they can also be accessed via Fold3 on Ancestry.
(9) Barnsley Chronicle, 5 August 1916, p.8; 7 July 1917, p. 8.
(10) Barnsley Chronicle, 18 November 1916, p. 8; 20 October 1917, p. 8; 19 October 1918, p. 4.
(11) Barnsley Chronicle, 30 January 1915, p. 8.
(12) Barnsley Chronicle, 5 August 1916, p. 8.
(13) Barnsley Chronicle, 30 June 1917, p. 8; 29 June 1918, p. 4.
(14) The Barnsley War Memorials Project indexed all mentions of servicemen and other people who lost their lives due to the war mentioned in the Barnsley Chronicle between August 1914 and March 1919. The index is available online (1914-1918 at https://barnsleyremembersww1.home.blog/newspaper-entries/) and also in Barnsley Archives (1914-1919). The British Newspaper Archive has not yet released issues of the Barnsley Chronicle beyond 1912, so, to find In Memoriam notices for Barnsley men post March 1919 in the Chronicle, it would require an issue by issue search through the microfilm at Barnsley Archives.
(15) Western Front Association (WFA), 'Pension Records'.
(16) Barnsley Chronicle, 18 November 1916, p. 1.
(17) Stockport Memorial Hall and Art Gallery, https://www.iwm.org.uk/memorials/item/memorial/2794, (accessed 21 September 2022)

'Plucky' Edwin Wilkinson, Killed in Action aged 18, IS Remembered in Barnsley

As you may know I am researching the Barnsley born men who lost their lives in the First World War (FWW) who are NOT remembered on any of the memorials (that we know of) in the Barnsley Borough. Happily today I found one of the men whom we thought had been omitted WAS commemorated on a memorial after all. 

Cover of the Roll of Honour
as published in 2018

I usually start my research on each man by looking at the information collected by the Barnsley War Memorials Project (BWMP) during the Centenary of the First World War, 2014-2018. The aim of the project was to compile a Roll of Honour of the men from Barnsley who had lost their lives in the war, as the main Barnsley Civic Memorial, in front of Barnsley Town Hall has no names inscribed upon it. The volunteers achieved this aim by collecting information on the extant war memorials in the Borough, searching the newspapers which covered the area for mentions of anyone male or female, service personnel or civilian, who lost their lives, and also for mentions of lost war memorials. I was one of the volunteers, and I did a lot of the newspaper research in Barnsley Archives, with a focus on the memorials, going up to 1930 in the hunt for some memorials, and later by co-ordinating a group of volunteers who worked from home to index the Barnsley Chronicle from August 1914 to March 1919. 

Each man or woman who lost their lives who was included in the Roll of Honour (published as a privately printed book and online in November 2018) had to have a connection to the Barnsley Borough. This could be by birth, or by residence at the time of their enlistment into the services or at the time of their death. Every person named on a war memorial in the Borough or mentioned in a newspaper report as having been named on a war memorial that is now lost, in the Borough, was also included. Our justification was that there must have been some reason for their inclusion on the memorials, even if we hadn't discovered what that had been yet. 

Other useful sources included the Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC) website, the data collection 'Soldiers Died in the Great War, 1914-1919' (SDGW), which was originally published in 81 volumes by His Majesty's Stationery Office in 1921, and De Ruvigny's Roll of Honour, 1914-1919 which, according to the Long, Long Trail, was apparently compiled by subscription, that is the family paid for an entry. Both of these sources are available on Ancestry and Find My Past (FMP), which are subscription websites, although at certain times of year, such as around Remembrance Sunday for example, access can be free to military records. See my endnotes for more information and links to access these sources online. 

Of course the information in the Barnsley Roll of Honour was only as good as the work of the volunteers collecting and sorting the information, and since the BWMP closed in early 2019 myself and another ex-committee member have been continuing to add to and refine the data collected. The data I collect for my PhD research is kept separately, but if any of it amends or clarifies that in the limited fields in the BWMP master spreadsheet I do notify my colleague who then makes those amendments. 

'Light Lines', the Somme Centenary Artwork
when it was originally displayed in front of
Barnsley Town Hall in 2016 (now in Churchfields
Gardens near by) Photo by the author

For my PhD research I delve more deeply into the families of the men who were not mentioned on any of the Borough's war memorials. Some have subsequently been added as a consequence of local history research projects, for example in the township of Cudworth, where 16 more FWW names were added during the restoration of the memorial in 2004. Others are now remembered on completely new memorials, such as the Somme Centenary Artwork, which included 47 names of Barnsley men (supposedly) killed on 1 July 1916, who were not remembered elsewhere in the Borough. I include these later commemorated men in my research as my aim is to try to discover why 590 of the Barnsley born men and women killed in the First World War, out of a current total of 3796 men and women connected to Barnsley, were not remembered immediately after that war, defined by myself as up to the start of the Second World War in 1939. 

The SDGW record for Edwin Wilkinson, who was killed on 11 October 1918 in France, states that he was born in Barnsley, and served in the Prince of Wales Own (West Yorkshire) Regiment, Service Number 62837. The CWGC entry for Edwin additionally notes that he was 18 years old when he died and that his mother Fanny Wilkinson lived at 22 Lingard Street, Barnsley, presumably in 1919 to 1921 when the information was collected for the CWGC registers. She had requested the words 'His Death a Noble One' to inscribed on his CWGC gravestone in Wellington Cemetery, Rieux-en-Cambresis. The family had two death notices published in the Barnsley Chronicle on 16 November 1918. In the same issue of the Chronicle there was a report of his death including information from a letter sent to his mother by an officer.

Another Barnsley lad to fall in the closing stages of the war was Pte. Edwin Wilkinson, West Yorks., of 99, Summer Lane. He had been in France five months. Before enlisting last December he was employed by Mr. C. Downing, iron merchant. Writing to the deceased lad's mother, Lieut. Cyril Birkinshaw-Smith says: - "I am sorry to have to tell you that your son died of wounds on October 11th. He was wounded in the leg during our advance but pluckily kept on until another bullet from a machine gun hit him in the left side. Two of his pals then tried to help him back to the aid-post, but after going a short distance he fainted and died very soon afterwards without regaining consciousness. He is buried near Maves, on the forward side of Cambrai. Your son was always one of the most cheerful lads in the Company; always full of life and go. When we were at Ypres during the summer he volunteered for every patrol we sent out. He was a favourite with us all and we very much regret his loss. He took a great interest in the Battalion, and was as plucky a lad as one could wish to meet. He refused to go to the aid-post when he was first wounded, saying, "I can get on all right; I'm coming on with the lads". 

It would have been the information from these sources that was used to create the notes in the record for Edwin in the BWMP master spreadsheet. That record also noted that Edwin was NOT remembered on any war memorial in the Barnsley Borough that we were aware of. 

My first thoughts were that as Edwin's family had posted death notices and caused a family citation to be added to his CWGC stone, both of which probably had a price (although the CWGC citations were nominally charged at 3.5d per letter, the charge was usually waived) it was odd that they hadn't commemorated him on a war memorial.  This suggested that I was missing some information.

My process for trying to find out why a man was not remembered, or as I call it in my draft thesis title, was 'absent from commemoration during or immediately after the war' consists of me building up a much more detailed picture of Edwin's family and his life than was done by the BWMP volunteers in most cases, and certainly more detailed than was recorded in the master spreadsheet. Any associations with clubs, schools, workplaces and especially religious institutions are recorded as these are the common places where we might expect to find a man remembered. I also look at where he was born, where his family lived during and after the war and whether any other members of his family served in the war and/or were killed. I have recently come across several instances where, of a pair of brothers both killed, one is commemorated and one is not. In those cases it seemed to depend on whether the man was married or not, and who had the perceived authority to submit their names to a war memorial committee for inclusion on a memorial, his widow or his parents. Then, further to that, what the person with authority's circumstances were after the war.

Edwin Wilkinson was born in Ardsley, which is now a suburb of Barnsley, in late 1899 to Joseph Wilkinson and his wife Fanny (nee Whitlam) who had married in 1887. He was baptised at the Christ Church, Ardsley, an Anglican Church, on 31 December 1899. The 'abode' recorded for the family at that time was Hay Green, Worsborough and Joseph's occupation was 'miner'. So the first mystery is why did a couple living in Worsborough have their child baptised in Ardsley? The answer to that might have lain in the fact that Fanny was born in Worsborough. It was common for women to have a child at the home of their parents if additional help was needed with the confinement. However the Whitlam(b) family, who had been living in Wombwell in 1881 and 1891, had dispersed by 1901 following the death of Fanny's father John in 1894.

Joseph and Fanny had four children that I am aware of:
Annie, born in Wombwell in Q4 1889 and baptised at St Mary's, Wombwell on 8 December 1889
Ida, also born in Wombwell in Q1 1892 (can't find her baptism on Ancestry or FMP)
Nellie, born in Wombwell in Q3 1895 (can't find her baptism on Ancestry or FMP)
Edwin, born Q4 1899 in Ardsley and baptised at Christ Church, Ardsley on 31 December 1899. 

I can't find a marriage for Joseph and Fanny in an Anglican church in the Barnsley area on either Ancestry or FMP, so they probably married either in a Non-Conformist church or in the Register Office. As noted above, I can't find baptisms for his two middle sisters, Ida and Nellie. FMP includes baptisms for St Mary's, Wombwell from 1864 to 1926 but Ida and Nellie are not recorded being baptised there, yet we know that is where they were born from the birthplaces declared for them in the 1901 and 1911 census returns.

Edwin's father Joseph Wilkinson died on 16 December 1900 at Church Street, Ardsley (Barnsley Chronicle, 22 December 1900, p. 8), so Edwin's mother Fanny was left with four young children to care for. In the 1901 census she was living with her married sister in Wombwell with Ida and Edwin, and Nellie was living with Joseph's brother William Wilkinson and his wife Margaret Ann (nee Burgin) not far away. The extended Wilkinson family were mainly clustered in the Wombwell Main area in 1881, 1891 and 1901 so Joseph and Fanny's stay in Ardsley between 1899 and 1901 may have been a brief aberration, possibly to do with the death of Joseph.

The only link with Ardsley that I can see is that Joseph and William's father, Edwin Wilkinson (whom presumably Edwin the FWW soldier was named after), who had been a coal miner in Wombwell in 1881 and 1891, had left the pit to run a pub at some point between 1891 and 1901. He was living at the Coach and Horses in Ardsley when the 1901 census was taken. It may be that Joseph and Fanny had a greater connection with him than her family - maybe to the point of having young Edwin baptised in his grandfather's local church rather than a church in Worsborough or Wombwell. The 1901 census also makes it clear that the Coach and Horses was on Church Street in Ardsley, so that might be where Joseph Wilkinson died in 1900, possibly as the result of an illness that had necessitated the family moving in with his father due to lack of sufficient income to remain independent.

The book Ardsley and Stairfoot Revisited by Tony Heald and Michael Chance includes a picture of the Coach and Horses during the tenure of Edwin Wilkinson. The book also notes that Edwin was the landlord there between 1898 and 1904. I imagine that Edwin snr. and his wife Ann are amongst the group pictured in front of the pub.

Photo of the Coach and Horses on page 63 of Ardsley & Stairfoot Revisited

On 5 March 1905 Fanny Wilkinson married William Wilkinson, her brother-in-law, at St Peter's church on Doncaster Road in Barnsley. Margaret Ann Wilkinson, William's first wife, had died in Q4 1904.  Although it became legal to marry a deceased wife's sister in 1907 the Deceased Brother's Widow's Marriage Bill was not passed through Parliament until 1921. This may be why Fanny and William chose to marry in a church some distance away from their usual place of residence in Wombwell, and were in Ardsley in 1911.

Ann Wilkinson, Edwin senior's wife, who died November 1901, Joseph Wilkinson, Edwin junior's father, who died in December 1901, Margaret Ann Wilkinson, William Wilkinson's first wife, who died in October 1904,  and Edwin Wilkinson senior, who died 1919, are all buried in Wombwell Cemetery in unconsecrated grave plots U/C 2 2386 and U/C 5 1647. The unconsecrated plots suggest an affiliation to non-conformity rather than the Anglican church. 

In the 1911 census William and Fanny Wilkinson were living at 4 School Street, at Stairfoot, Ardsley with Fanny's children Annie, Ida, Nellie and Edwin plus a daughter Margaret Ann Wilkinson aged 2 years born in Stairfoot. William and his first wife Margaret Ann had had one son, Frederick, who had died in November 1906 aged 16. He is buried in the same plot in Wombwell Cemetery as his mother. The new addition to the family half-sister (and cousin?) to Edwin the soldier, was obviously named after William's first wife. As the families had lived so near to each other in Wombwell in previous years I can only assume that they were very close, for example remember how Nellie was living with William and Margaret in 1901 when Fanny had just been bereaved, and it was very natural for them to comfort each other after their respective spouses had died and subsequently to marry, despite the irregularity of that marriage. 

The closeness of the family continued on to the next generation.

In Q3 1916 Annie Wilkinson, eldest daughter of Joseph and Fanny, and Edwin the FWW soldier's sister, married Adam Blades, the son of widow Mary Ann Blades, who had been living at 42 Foster Street, Ardsley in 1911.  Adam enlisted in the York and Lancaster Regiment and was then transferred to the 8th Battalion West Yorkshire Regiment. He was killed in action on 27 August 1917.  The amount of war gratuity paid for Adam suggests he had been in service for less than 12 months. He was 28 years old. 

In Q1 1918 Ida Wilkinson, second daughter of Joseph and Fanny, married Arthur Sheriff, son of Edward and Jane E Sheriff who had lived at 21 Hunningley Lane, Stairfoot in 1911. Arthur's occupation in 1911 was Auctioneer's Clerk, and his father was a Carting Contractor. Arthur was 26 years old. Sadly he died on 25 November 1918, presumably of natural causes as there is no mention that he was in the forces in his death notices in the Barnsley Chronicle on 30 November 1918, p. 4. 

SHERIFF - In memory of Arthur, the ever loving and dearly loved husband of Ida Sheriff, who passed away November 25th, 1918. Born December 17th, 1891. - Until the day break. 22, Lingard Street.

There were also notices from the Sheriff and Wilkinson families. The address given for 'Mrs Wilkinson and family' was 99 Summer Lane - this would have been Fanny Wilkinson, Ida's mother and Arthur's mother-in-law. 

Note that I cannot find the marriages of either Annie or Ida Wilkinson in an Anglican church on either Ancestry or Find My Past. Like their parents this suggests a marriage in a Non-Conformist church or the Register Office. 

Maybe because he made his will before his marriage the executor of Adam Blades' will, and the person to whom his Army Effects were left was Arthur Sheriff. This suggests that the Wilkinson sisters' husbands were very good friends.

Entry for Adam Blades in the National Probate Calendar on Ancestry.co.uk

This is confirmed by Arthur Sheriff's gravestone in Ardsley cemetery, which also has a memorial inscription to Adam Blades. 

Arthur Sheriff's grave stone, with inscription to Adam Blades on the base
Photographs taken in 2014 by the author

The full inscription reads:

In True and loving memory / of my dear husband / Arthur Sheriff / of Lingard Street, Barnsley / who passed away Novr 20th 1918 / in his 27th year / around his grave are ? / and beauty / and the sweet heaven around / the fitting symbols of ? / of duty / transfigured into love /

Also of Adam Blades / the dearly loved friend of the above / and husband of Annie Blades / Killed in Action in France August 27th 1918 / in his 29th year / "His death a noble one.

Adam Blades is also remembered on the war memorial in Christ Church, Ardsley. 

We know that Edwin Wilkinson was killed in action on 11 October 1918 and that there was a report of his death and two death notices in the Barnsley Chronicle for him. But Edwin was not remembered on the memorial at Christ Church, Ardsley, the place where he was baptised. Neither does he appear to be remembered in Wombwell Cemetery which has been thoroughly searched for war memorial inscriptions by several volunteers. I do not yet know whether Joseph and Fanny's grave (Fanny died in 1940 and was buried with her first husband in plot U/C 5 1647) has a gravestone, which as he was unmarried, would have been the logical place for him to be remembered in that way - checking that plot is now on my 'to do' list. 

The memorial that I am fairly sure that Edwin Wilkinson is remembered on is the impressive five panelled oak framed Roll of Honour at the Wesleyan Methodist Church on Hunningley Lane, Stairfoot.  This memorial was unveiled on 9 March 1918, and was the second Roll of Honour in the church, the first having been unveiled in July 1917. There are approximately 250 names on the memorial, all men, arranged in alphabetical order apart from the last seven. Each entry includes the man's name, rank and regiment (or ship or service if not the army) and bravery medals such as the Military Medal. Thirty-one of the names also include date of death and the way in which the man died, for example Died of Wounds or Gassed & Died, a great deal more detail than is usually found on war memorials, though sometimes date of death is found on Rolls of Honour that were updated throughout the war. The other men only have their names, rank, etc. Edwin Wilkinson, Private, West Yorks, is named on the fifth panel with no additional details, so at the time this memorial was transcribed in 2014, not long after it was discovered (completely by accident when my husband was called to the church by a friend to fix a door as a favour), we assumed that Edwin Wilkinson had survived.

Edwin Wilkinson's name on the Wesleyan Roll of Honour
(photographed 9 April 2014)

Of course the Roll of Honour was unveiled before Edwin's death. The Barnsley Independent noted that 'the Roll was so arranged that additional particulars could be easily added at any time'. However Edwin Wilkinson's entry on the Roll of Honour, which does give the correct rank and regiment for the man under investigation, was not updated. I do wonder if I should now check every other man on the memorial ... 

There is a Joseph Blades listed without additional details, he could have been Adam Blades' brother (there is a Joseph an appropriate age to have served listed in the 1911 census with Adam), but Adam himself is not included. Thomas Francis Bellamy, who was killed in action in 1915, is listed on both the Ardsley Christ Church memorial and the Stairfoot Wesleyan Roll of Honour, as well as on his parents' gravestone in Ardsley Cemetery. There does not appear to have been any strict rules about inclusion on the Roll of Honour. Possibly the Wesleyan church held social activities which attracted men who usually worshipped at the Anglican Church which entitled them to be included on the Roll of Honour?? Unless I can find archive documents detailing the way in which the Roll of Honour was compiled the criteria for inclusion will remain a mystery.

I have looked in census records and birth, marriage and death records to see if there were any other men named Edwin Wilkinson living in Barnsley of an age to serve in the forces in the First World War and I am satisfied that there were not. Also we know the family lived in Stairfoot in 1911 and that there were a number of indications, such as the lack of most of the family's marriages and baptisms in Anglican churches and the burial of the family members in unconsecrated plots in Wombwell Cemetery, that suggest they inclined towards non-conformity such as Wesleyan Methodism. I am satisfied that the Edwin Wilkinson on the Stairfoot Wesleyan Roll of Honour is the man who was killed in October 1918. 

In the course of this research I also looked at what Edwin's family did after the war. If they had moved away from Barnsley or died before the local memorials were erected that might have explained his absence, as I had previously assumed, from the memorials in the Barnsley Borough. But his family do appear to have mostly remained living in the area, some until their deaths.

On Edwin's CWGC entry his mother's address was given as 22 Lingard Street, Barnsley and that was also the address given by Ida Sheriff on the death notice for her husband Arthur. There has been a half-price sale on the 1921 census on FMP over the 24 hours (as I write this on 29 and 30 June 2022) so I decided to check that address. 

1921 census for 22 Lingard Street, Barnsley. RG15_22694_0604 from Find My Past

The two widowed sisters, Ida Sheriff and Annie Blades are living together at 22 Lingard Street on 19 June 1921. They are both Ladies Tailors, working on their own account, at 16, The Arcade, Barnsley. Neither have any children. This is another strong indication of the close relationship between the members of the Wilkinson family and I do like the detail showing how the ladies were supporting themselves at that time. 'Blades & Sheriff, Ladies' Tailors' are listed at 16 The Arcade in the 1927 Kelly's Directory.  I later found Ida Sheriff and Annie Blades in the 1939 Register living at 141 George V Avenue in Worthing, Sussex. Both were recorded with the occupation of 'Unpaid Domestic Duties' which appears to have been the default for any adult woman in the 1939 Register. 

The 1939 Register was taken on 29 September 1939 as part of the preparations to issue identity cards during the Second World War. It was later used as a source for the National Health Service and continued to be updated for many years. It is available online from Ancestry and FMP.

I also looked up and found Fanny Wilkinson in the 1921 census, recorded as a widow, living with her youngest child, Margaret, aged 12 years (there is a note stating 'Father Dead' in column (e) on the return) and her third daughter, Nellie at 99 Summer Lane. This, if you recall, was the address she gave in the death notice for Arthur Sheriff. Nellie is married to John Thomas Woodhouse, a Grocers Assistant working at Liptons Ltd on Queen's Street, Barnsley. They had married in the Barnsley area in Q3 1920. The oddity here is that William Wilkinson, Fanny's second husband, brother of her first husband Joseph, and the father of Margaret, is not dead. He does not die until 1944, when he is buried, aged 76, in the same plot as his first wife and their son Frederick, U/C 2 2386 in Wombwell Cemetery. Fanny and William appear to have parted company by 1921 - possibly because their marriage was not actually legal? 

As the 1921 census records were only £1.75 each (during the 'Flash Sale' already mentioned) I looked for William Wilkinson and found him quite easily. He was living at 10 Bond Street, Wombwell, working as a Dataller at Wombwell Main Colliery Company. There are a family of boarders living with him, born locally, but no apparent relation. He says he is married. His age, place of birth (Ardsley), and occupation all match the information given in the 1911 census for the William Wilkinson living with (and supposedly married to) Fanny Wilkinson. The West Yorkshire Electoral Registers on Ancestry allowed me to trace William Wilkinson through to 1939 still living at 10 Bond Street in Wombwell and there was no trace of Fanny at that address, in fact William appeared to be cohabiting with an Isabella Dyson from 1930 to 1939. However he was not at that address in the 1939 Register.  Which is odd, as he was there in the 1940 Electoral Register, although Isabella Dyson has left. William was buried from 31 Wath Road, Brampton in September 1944, in Wombwell Cemetery, as I mentioned above.

Another set of recently released records which are useful for my research are the Pension Record Cards. I access these via the Western Front Association's website (access is included in my membership subscription) but they are also available on via Ancestry on the Fold3 website (athough an additional subscription is required). 

There are three different pension records for Edwin Wilkinson. Two are cards and one is a pension ledger entry. One is indexed as Eawin Wilkinson, but entering solely his service number retrieved all three records. They name his mother Fanny as his dependant with addresses of 22 Lingard Street and 99 Summer Lane. The latter address appears on the pension ledger record which has notes recorded upon it from 1922 until 1930. 

John Thomas Woodhouse, of 22 Lingard Street, Barnsley has a pension card with a disability of D.A.H. (possibly diffuse alveolar haemorrhage) due to his Service noted. He had served in the Labour Corps and had been discharged in July 1918. He was initially recorded as 30% disabled and this was reduced to 20% disabled in 1921. His address was updated to 99 Summer Lane, Barnsley at some point.  I found Nellie and John T Woodhouse living at 82 Huddersfield Road in the 1939 Register. They had their daughter, Joan, born in July 1921, so just after the 1921 census was taken in the June, living with them. I was interested to see that she was a Library Assistant and an Air Raid Precautions (ARP) Control** (the entry is cropped short in the image) Voluntary First Aid **.  Her father John was listed as being in the ARP Service too.

The movements of the family members between 22 Lingard Street and 99 Summer Lane are very complex. Ida (nee Wilkinson) and Arthur Sheriff were living at 22 Lingard Street when Arthur died on 20 November 1918. Edwin Wilkinson’s address was given as ‘of’ 99 Summer Lane when he was reported dead on 16 November 1918. Yet when the data was collected for his CWGC registration his mother Fanny Wilkinson was ‘of’ 22 Lingard Street. We know that widowed Annie Blades (nee Wilkinson) was living with her widowed sister Ida Sheriff at 22 Lingard Street in June 1921, whereas Fanny Wilkinson with her daughter Nellie and son-in-law John T. Woodhouse were living at 99 Summer Lane. Both addresses were listed on her claim for a pension on behalf of Edwin. The pension cards for John T Woodhouse also show both addresses.

I suggest that the Wilkinsons had been living at Summer Lane before Edwin enlisted, which should not have been before he turned 18 towards the end of 1917, but that Fanny moved to 22 Lingard Street in late 1918 after the deaths of Arthur and Edwin, maybe to comfort her widowed daughters. Annie Wilkinson had married Adam Blades in July/August/September (Q3) 1916 and been widowed in August 1917, so presumably she had returned to live with either her mother or her sister after that. Nellie Wilkinson married John T Woodhouse, who was partially disabled, in Q3 1920, and he came to live with the family at Lingard Street. Fanny then moved back to 99 Summer Lane before 1921, taking daughter Nellie and son-in-law John Woodhouse with her, and leaving her widowed daughters Ida and Annie living independently at Lingard Street.  Fanny's address at her death in 1940 was 82 Huddersfield Road, Barnsley, which, as we have seen, was the address of her daughter Nellie Woodhouse in 1939.

The relationships between mother and daughters appear close and supportive. The only child I have been unable to trace, so far, is Margaret Ann Wilkinson, Fanny’s youngest daughter, and half sister to Annie, Ida, Nellie and Edwin. Fanny’s second marriage, to her brother-in-law William, possibly lasted long enough to support Fanny and her children until they became self sufficient, before William moved away from them.

We know Ida and Annie moved away to Sussex before 1939, and it appears they then moved to Bridlington, maybe still together. There is only one pension card for Adam Blades, it seems to be a later type than is usual and it gives widow Annie Blades' address as 23 St Annes Road, Bridlington. The only dates on this card are possibly 1946 and a case closed date of November 1965.  Annie Blades appears to have died in Bridlington in 1963. Ida Sheriff appears to have died in Bridlington in 1981. The two widowed sisters stayed together until death parted them.

Obtaining marriage and death certificates, which would include addresses for the family, would enable their movements to be more precisely tracked, but unfortunately at £11 (£7 for a pdf) each the cost is prohibitive. The marriage certificates, by providing the place of marriage, might also confirm or deny my assumption that the family had connections to a Non-conformist religion, possibly giving further support to my assertion that Edwin Wilkinson was remembered at the Stairfoot Wesleyan Church.

In any research I would recommend that all information is double checked - and this is a good example of a war memorial that is not as accurate as we had first assumed. We had based our assumption on the amount of extra information that had been originally included on it without taking note of the fact that it was unveiled before the war ended. As I mentioned above, it might be sensible now to double check the other names with no additional details on the Stairfoot Wesleyan Roll of Honour, just in case we made similar assumptions for any of the other men.

Thank you for reading.

References:

(All websites accessed 30 June 2022 or 1 July 2022)

Ancestry, https://www.ancestry.co.uk/

Barnsley War Memorials Project, 'Barnsley Remembers: WW1 Roll of Honour', (2018) and online at 'Barnsley WW1 Roll of Honour', https://barnsleyremembersww1.home.blog/ 

Barnsley & District War Memorials, 'Ardsley Cemetery, Adam Blades', BWMP #ARD06/1, http://www.barnsleywarmemorials.org.uk/2014/07/ardsley-cemetery-adam-blades.html 

Barnsley & District War Memorials, 'Stairfoot, Wesleyan Reform Church WW1 Roll of Honour, Hunningley Lane', http://www.barnsleywarmemorials.org.uk/2014/04/stairfoot-wesleyan-reform-church-roll.html

Commonwealth War Graves Commission, https://www.cwgc.org/

'De Ruvigny's Roll of Honour, 1914-1919',  https://www.ancestry.co.uk/search/collections/60454/

Find My Past, https://www.findmypast.co.uk/

Hansard, 'Deceased Brother's Widow's Marriage Bill', 28 June 1921, https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/lords/1921/jun/28/deceased-brothers-widows-marriage-bill

Heald, T. and Chance, M. Ardsley & Stairfoot Revisited: A Photographic Record (Wadhurst: Greenman Enterprise, 2008)

Long, Long Trail, 'National Rolls of Honour', https://www.longlongtrail.co.uk/soldiers/how-to-research-a-soldier/national-rolls-of-honour/

'Soldiers Died in the Great War, 1914-1919', https://www.ancestry.co.uk/search/collections/1543/  

Western Front Association Pension Record Cards, https://www.westernfrontassociation.com/fold3-pension-records/ 

Researching One Man Solves Another Puzzle - Brampton Parish Hall Roll of Honour

The Brampton Bierlow Parish Hall Roll of Honour was brought to my notice when a friend attended a celebration at the Parish Hall and spotted the Roll of Honour (RoH) on display in the foyer. That was in February 2020, and despite a lot of research since a very small number of the 100 men on the list, three to be precise, have proven difficult to identify with any degree of certainty. The list shows men who served as well as those who died, and finding information on men who survived the war is much more difficult as fewer online records are available.

One of the three was the very first man on the list, John Andrews. 

Top left hand corner of the Brampton Parish Hall RoH

This morning, while researching a Barnsley born men, Arthur Andrews, who is not remembered on any war memorial in the Barnsley Borough, the John Andrews on the Brampton RoH was finally identified. 

Arthur Andrews was born in Barnsley in early 1894  and was killed in action on 29 July 1915 in Belgium. The source for many of the Barnsley connected men on the Barnsley War Memorials Project's list (which eventually formed the Barnsley First World War Roll of Honour) was the Soldiers Died in the Great War (SDGW) records which can be found on both Ancestry and Find My Past. These usually include the places of birth, residence and enlistment for the men who died. 

This is the SDGW record for Arthur Andrews.

Name: Arthur Andrews
Birth Place: Barnsley
Death Date: 29 Jul 1915
Death Place: France and Flanders
Enlistment Place: Conisborough
Rank: Corporal
Regiment: King's Own Yorkshire Light Infantry
Battalion: 1st 5th Battalion
Regimental Number: 1727
Type of Casualty: Killed in Action
Theatre of War: Western European Theatre

There is no entry for Residence, but the fact that he enlisted in Conisborough, about 14 miles south-east of Barnsley, does suggest that he had moved away from his place of birth before the war. A search of memorials in that area resulted in an A. Andrews being found on the Mexborough war memorial. Of course that does not prove this was the same man.

The next most frequently used source was the Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC) website. The information on the SDGW page is usually enough to find the matching man on the CWGC site. 

This is the CWGC record for Arthur Andrews.

Corporal A Andrews
Service Number: 1727
Regiment & Unit/Ship: King's Own Yorkshire Light Infantry, "D" Coy. 1st/5th Bn.
Date of Death: 29 July 1915. Age 22 years old.
Buried or commemorated at: Talana Farm Cemetery, II. F. 9. Belgium
Country of Service: United Kingdom
Additional Info: Son of William and Emily Andrews, of Mexborough, Yorks.
Personal Inscription: Too Dearly Loved to be Forgot

This record confirms that it is very likely the A. Andrews on the Mexborough war memorial is indeed Arthur Andrews, as that was the place where his parents lived. 

Further down the CWGC page for each man there are usually a number of documents from the CWGC Archives. These give details of graves' registration and the headstones.

Note of request for Family Inscription re Arthur Andrews (CWGC doc2628985)

Opening the two documents related to Arthur's headstone shows, on the second page, the details of the text to be carved into his stone and the name of the person who requested the 'Personal Inscription'. In this case this was Mr. J. Andrews, of 33, Knoll Beck Avenue, Brampton, Wombwell. At the far end of the row for Arthur Andrews a pencil notation records that this family inscription would have cost 7s (at 3 pence halfpenny per character). However this fee was often waived. 

Why would Arthur's inscription have been submitted by J. Andrews and not by his parents William and Emily, who were, after all, mentioned in the 'Additional Information' in the main entry?

William and Emily Andrews and their family were found in the 1901 census living in Mexborough.

1901 census for Andrews household at 54 Bank Street, Mexborough (from Ancestry)

The family were living at 54 Bank Street in Mexborough. 

Name                                    Age   Occupation                                Place of Birth
William Andrews Head M    41    Tobacconist & Boiler Maker     London, St Pancras
Emily Andrews    Wife  F     37                                                       Lincs, Sturton
Edith Andrews     Dau   F     15    Domestic Servant                     Notts, Shireoaks
Rose Andrews      Dau   F     13                                                     Notts, Shireoaks
John Andrews      Son    M    11                                                      Notts, Shireoaks
Arthur Andrews   Son    M    7                                                        Yorks, Barnsley
Albert Andrews    Son   M    4                                                         Yorks, Mexborough

Arthur Andrews, who was to become our soldier, was only 7 years old in 1901, but this tallies with him being 22 (or thereabouts) when he was killed in 1915. The family were obviously only in Barnsley a short amount of time as John, the next older child to Arthur, was born in Shireoaks in Nottinghamshire, and Albert, the youngest child, was born in Mexborough.

Another source of corroborating evidence for the identity of a First World War soldier is the Army Registers of Soldiers Effects records on Ancestry. The 'Effects' were the pay due to a man at his death and a war gratuity paid at the end of the war. 

Army Effects record for Arthur Andrews showing his siblings' names (from Ancestry)

In Arthur's case the 'To Whom Authorised' column includes a list of his siblings' names, which you can match to the list from the 1901 census return above. Florence is an older sister (b.1884) who had left home before 1901.  John Andrews' share seems to have gone to sister Edith, whose married name of Ward, is helpfully given, but later the War Gratuity payment (in red ink) of £4 goes entirely to John. I'm afraid I don't know why this wasn't shared as well.

Pension Cards also show the names of next of kin. They are available to view either on Fold3, accessible via Ancestry but for an additional subscription or on the Western Front Association (WFA) website, free to all members.

Arthur Andrew's Pension Card (from the WFA)

Here you can see that Arthur's sister Rose Bell (her married name) put in a claim for Arthur's pension. But as there are no amounts of money given I can only assume she was not eligible. 

But where are Arthur's parents?  Sadly Emily Andrews died in 1904 and William Andrews died in 1907, both in the Doncaster Registration District, which includes Mexborough. This means it must have been left to Arthur's brothers and sisters to deal with his death. They must have decided to pay tribute to their parents by including their names on the CWGC entry to their brother Arthur.

We know that J. Andrews submitted the family inscription to the CWGC and was presumably willing to pay if necessary - so this was probably brother John.  Further evidence to confirm this was found in John's marriage to Florence Atmore at Christ Church in Brampton Bierlow.

1919 marriage entry for John Andrews and Florence Atmore (from Find My Past)

Intro to the Roll of Honour in the
Mexborough & Swinton Times,
26 September 1914, p.9.

John Andrews states that his father was William Andrews, deceased, a boiler maker.  This was the name and occupation of the father of the Andrews family given in the 1901 census. 

John's address when he married was 28 Park View, Wombwell, this was also his address in the 1919 Electoral Register for Wombwell, and the address published for a John Andrews by the Mexborough & Swinton Times, on 26 September 1914, which featured a massive Roll of Honour listing the men who had enlisted in the armed forces from Mexborough, Conisborough, Wath and Wombwell. This confirmed that John was in the armed forces, at least in 1914.

On the marriage record above John's bride Florence Atmore was recorded as the daughter of Thomas Atmore, home address 74 Concrete Buildings, Brampton Bierlow. I have previously shown the Brampton Parish Hall RoH to have a close connection to the Concrete Buildings or Cottages. The second name on the RoH was Thomas Atmore (see the image at the top of this post), who was Florence's brother. He survived the war having also served in the King's Own Yorkshire Light Infantry. It seems very likely that John Andrews, as a relative of the family by marriage, would also have been included in the RoH for the area.

We have seen that  J. Andrews' address for correspondence with the CWGC after the war was 33 Knoll Beck Avenue, Brampton. I was able to find a John Andrews living at that address in the 1923 to 1928 Electoral Registers for Brampton Bierlow. From 1929 to 1934 John and Florence Andrews were listed together at Brampton Cottages in Brampton Bierlow.  Florence would have begun appearing after women aged 21 and over got the vote in 1928. From 1936 to 1946 John and Florence appear in the Electoral Registers at 12 Winterwell Road in Wath upon Dearne, which is also where they were when the 1939 Register was compiled. 

1939 Register household of John and Florence Andrews at 12 Winterwell Road, Wath upon Dearne
(from Find My Past)

The birth dates of the couple in the 1939 register tally with the ages of John Andrews (30) and Florence Atmore (24) in the marriage entry above.

Brampton Parish Hall is on Knollbeck Lane, the main road which Knollbeck Avenue joins, and which is adjacent to the site of the Concrete Cottages. Park View is less than a mile away. Therefore I am fairly confident that the John Andrews who lived there is the one who appears on the Brampton Parish Hall Roll of Honour, and was the brother of Arthur Andrews who was killed on 29 July 1915. 

It would be nice to know what regiment John Andrews served in, for how long and the result of his war experience, but his name is not uncommon, for example there are 353 hits for John Andrews on the Medal Cards page on Ancestry, which is why his identity had eluded me for so long. 

Finding the most of the answer to a long standing puzzle like this is very satisfying result, and only came about because of the large amount of research and documentation I have accumulated about the men of the Barnsley area who served in the First World War, plus a fair amount of luck that his brother was one of the men I am researching for an different reason.

Thank you for reading.

References

Ancestry, https://www.ancestry.co.uk/ 

Commonwealth War Graves Commission, https://www.cwgc.org/

Find My Past, https://www.findmypast.co.uk/

HMSO, Soldiers Died in the Great War (1921) originally in 81 volumes, available on Ancestry.co.uk  https://www.ancestry.co.uk/search/collections/1543/

Western Front Association Pension Cards, https://www.westernfrontassociation.com/ancestry-pension-records/