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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 1919 marriage entry for John Andrews and Florence Atmore (from Find My Past) |
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| Intro to the Roll of Honour in the Mexborough & Swinton Times, 26 September 1914, p.9. |
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.
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| 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/