A Westhoughton soldier's story

The information was compiled with the help of Bolton Archive and Local Studies Service, Mere Hall Register Office, The Queen's Lancashire Regiment Museum at Fulwood Barracks, Preston and Westhoughton Public Library. The Commonwealth War Graves Commission website can be searched at: www.cwgc.org/ Once upon a time in Westhoughton, there lived a young man by the name of James Harrison.

He wasn't anything special or unusual, just an ordinary bloke who was born, grew up, and married in the town.

You might say he was just one in a million. Sadly his story wasn't an unusual one either, in fact it was all too common for those days.

James had a start in life so plain that he couldn't have known someone would be writing about him over 100 years later.

He was born in a small terraced house -- cobbled streets, outside loo -- overlooked by a colliery at James Street, Westhoughton, in 1886.

The house isn't there now, but was in the background of a recent 'Looking Back' photograph of 'Stotts Rucks'.

He was the second son of James Harrison, a miner at Stotts Pit, and Elizabeth Ellen Ormesher, the daughter of a silk weaver from Ormskirk.

She must have been in charge, because before James, their children were named after her side of the family.

The Harrisons had previously lived at addresses in the town, such as Hart Street (At Hart Common) and Pendlebury Terrace (near to James Street), but always close to a pit.

James survived the early years when children often didn't, and times were harder than we are used to now.

Accidents and explosions were common events in mining in those days, and were almost accepted as part of the working life of a miner.

Maybe that was why James didn't follow his father into the pit but became a mill worker to earn his living.

Then came World War One. I don't know if James wanted to enlist or felt that he had to, I only know that his country needed him.

So in early September, 1914, he put on his best clothes and travelled into Bolton to sign up for the Army.

They snapped him up, and just 11 days later he was on his way to a succession of places at which he was turned into a soldier.

As you might expect from a 28-year-old, he was not the perfect soldier.

While at Windmill Army camp near Eastbourne, James occasionally fell foul of the Army's strict disciplinary code.

AC0's parade was called at a quarter to three one morning, and James wasn't there (extra guard duty).

Two months later he was 'Drunk and creating a disturbance and fighting with Pte. Burns' (120 hours field punishment).

One month after that he was 'Caught talking in the ranks' (even more guard duty), and later still he was found to be 'Drunk on the line of march', but for some reason the case was dismissed.

My feeling is that he got away with it because his unit was about to be sent across the Channel.

The Army decided to send James and his fellow recruits on what was probably their first ever boat trip, from Folkestone to France, at the end of July 1915.

They were soon caught up in the action, and James was wounded twice, eventually receiving a leg wound serious enough for him to be sent home on a hospital ship to recover.

During this leave period at Christmas, 1916, he married Agnes, a mill worker and miner's daughter of Albion Street, Wingates.

They were to enjoy almost two whole months of married life before he had recovered enough to be fit for active service, and they parted in mid February 1917.

When they said their goodbyes, neither could have known that James had just six months left to live.

Agnes became a widow at the age of 26, on Thursday, August 2, 1917, one day after a shell landed close to her husband's side.

The explosion and shrapnel tore into his back and smashed his right leg and arm. This was not to be a simple, instantaneous death, like in the war films.

He was carried through deep mud to a medical post, and from there taken to a casualty clearing station seven miles away where he died of his wounds the next day.

James died following one of the early actions of the Third Battle of Ypres, a massive Allied assault designed to put an end to the stalemate on the Western Front.

The battle records say that his final days were spent among water-filled trenches and shell holes. The notion of trenches as neat, timber-lined walkways, was often far from the truth.

After artillery barrages, 'trench' could easily mean a simple scrape hole or crater in the ground.

There was mustard gas, shellfire, snipers, machine gunners and German aircraft shooting from skies so leaden that the Royal Flying Corps declined to send up any aircraft. Thunderstorms before the operation made the going incredibly heavy, and the troops were weighed down with kit.

A significant dent was made in the German lines, but the ground gained had to be given up when the ammunition ran out.

When the Third Battle of Ypres, also known as the Passchendaele campaign, was finally halted some months later, the body count stood at hundreds of thousands of men dead on each side. The advance made by the Allies was five miles.

James was one of the last men to die as a result of the particular action he was involved in, but among the first of many to lose their lives in the overall offensive.

Page six of the Bolton Journal and Guardian of August 17, 1917, recorded his death as follows

"Mrs. Harrison of 17 Albion Street, Westhoughton, has received official information that her husband, Pte. James Harrison, Loyal North Lancashire Regiment, died of wounds received on August 1st.

He enlisted in the Army on September 3rd, 1914. He was wounded two years ago. Whilst home on furlough eight months ago, he was married. He was wounded on August 1st, this time seriously, and died the following day.

He was 31 years of age and was, previous to enlisting, a Side Piecer at Messrs. William Heaton & Sons, Lostock Mills.

He is on the Roll of Honour at Trinity Wesleyan Church."

The page this article is taken from makes for uncomfortable reading. There are stories of other men such as Private Allan Partington, a 19-year-old mill worker from Milo Street who took five days to die from the effects of gas and burns received on July 27, 1917.

Another soldier, 21-year-old Gunner Herbert Lee, of 148, Mornington Road, died after being gassed by a shell, even though he was immediately given medical attention.

An Assistant Librarian at Westhoughton, Lance Corporal Joseph Smith was shot through the head while going 'over the top', and at the time of the report was said to be lying in hospital at Rouen.

To be wounded and then later to return to the front, as in James's case, was commonplace.

An Army clerk scrawled the word 'DEAD' across the front of James' record in large writing.

Three years after James died, Agnes received the last of the medals he had earned, and dutifully posted the signed receipt back to the authorities.

She also received a modest pension in return for her husband's service to his country, and ultimately, his life.

Although the Army had on file a copy of the wedding certificate, Agnes was not the first to be informed of his death because they had not amended his service records.

Local officials of the Soldiers and Sailors Families Association operating from Westhoughton Town Hall wrote to the Army at Preston to tell them about their oversight.

Whether Agnes married again or had children I don't yet know, but I would like to think life got better for her after what she had been through.

James is buried at Lijssenthoek Military Cemetery in Belgium, close to where he died. In one military cemetery, the names of 35,000 men are commemorated whose bodies were never found.

The Commonwealth War Graves Commission has an Internet website, listing the final resting places of soldiers killed in action.

If you tap in the basic details that I had when I began to research his story, you will find no less than 81 J. Harrisons who lost their lives in 1917 alone, including the two whose names you can see on the War Memorial at Westhoughton. These names rarely appear in Regimental histories because they were mostly not commissioned officers.

It was usual to record casualties by naming the officers killed and describing the rest as a quantity of 'other ranks'.

Mass burials in the field were sometimes marked by a cross giving the same sort of details.

Pte. 16538 James Harrison, 1st/4th Loyal North Lancashire Regiment wasn't special enough to be recorded as anything but one of the 'other ranks'. Just one in a million.