1 July 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/