Oldham and District Branch of the M&LFHS Newsletter Nov. 2014 Branch News Oct . Meeting 24th Manchesters in Italy by Corporal Stewart Cook Stewart is a member of the Living History Group at the Museum of the Manchester Regiment and he came dressed in his WW1 Italian campaign Pals’ uniform with a collection of original equipment, some of which had belonged to his greatgrandfather. He has researched the battalion through war diaries and archives at Ashton and Kew. He began his talk with an explanation of how the battalion was formed in 1914 with training at Hollingworth Lake before moving first to Grantham, Llanferfechan, Salisbury Plain and finally to France in November 1915. He gave us an overview of the progress of the war and explained that it was the decision to convert the battalion to a Pioneer battalion that saved them from heavy casualties as their job was digging trenches, laying barbed wire and defending trenches. However it was no easy option as was demonstrated by dressing a member of the audience in the kit of the day which weighed over 100 pounds.. Stewart explained that not only would they have to wear all this kit but would also have to carry duck-boards, 500 feet of barbed wire as well as a steel helmet, rifle, ammunition, sword, bayonet and food. Late in 1917 they were sent to Italy where they continued in their role as a fighting labour force finally arriving at the Asiago Plateau in April 1918. It was incredible to hear the hard work they did; building trenches, reconnoitering rivers and laying tape to lead troops forward, constructing and working box-cart cable-cars up the Dolomite Mountains, hewing pathways out of limestone rocks, digging dug outs and basically raising the morale of the Italians who worked alongside them. The peace Treaty ended the war in Italy on 4th November. The Battalion arrived back at Oldham in November 1919 minus 400 men. We hope to have Stewart back in the near future for another interesting talk. Oldham Branch Our November meeting Canceled. Next Oldham Branch Meeting 14 February 2015 when John Marsden will be presenting, Forgotten Fields, his burial grounds talk. Journal Editor We would like to thank Jennifer Lever for volunteering to be the next editor of the Oldham pages in the Society journal. Newsletter The newsletter will be available on the Oldham branch page of the MLFHS website.Society News Local News Local Research into World War One Gillian Ashworth,of St Pauls Methodist Church in Shaw, who is also one of our members, has just completed some research into the 15 men who died in the First World War and who are commemorated on the memorial of St Pauls Methodist Church in Shaw. After the war the congregation raised money to commemorate their men on a memorial and also in the building of an extension to their building called the Institute which was a place to improve the education of their members. It had a reading room, a snooker room and a kitchen. The building is now a nursery. Each family who lost a son in the war wrote about him in an autograph book which had been kept in the safe and which was discovered by Gillian and her colleagues.Gillian writes, We found an autograph book which was produced to fund raise. For each man who died their family wrote about their son. There are also lots of pages in which men who returned wrote where they had been .This was a basis of my research. In fact one church member realised one was her uncle whom she never knew! The men are a mixture: mill workers, mill secretaries, the two sons of the dentist that was living on Beal Lane, the son of the Head Teacher of the Methodist school. One man, Ernest G Calder, was a teacher at St James School but must have worshipped with us! Another mans family copied an extract from a letter he wrote about arriving at the front. Gillian is hoping to display her research in Shaw library during November and she also hopes that people who see it might be related to some of the men. If you have researched your local community in any way please let us know so we can share it. Talks and Visits by Other Groups Chadderton Historical Group Thursday 6th November The Great War and Chaddertons Involvement Chadderton Cricket Club, start at 7.30pm. Portland Basin Museum in Ashton-under-Lyne Friday 7th November The Home Front in WW1 Tim Lynch tells the forgotten story of the First World War Home Front as experienced by the families of the men who marched away. When war came, fear of the enemy within led to vigilante attacks on businesses thought to have links with the Central Powers. Thousands of German and Austrianborn men were interned as enemy aliens, and their British-born wives and children were stripped of their citizenship. The talk, which is free to attend, starts at 1pm and lasts for approximately 40 minutes. Tameside Historical Society Wednesday 12th November7.00 pm Conscientious Objectors and Excepted Occupations Talk by Nigel Dunkerley Meetings are held in the Old Chapel schoolrooms, Old Road, Dukinfield £1.50 for members and £2.00 for non-members, tea and coffee on arrival. Saddleworth Historical Society Wednesday 19th November 7.30pm AGM followed by a talk by Mike Buckley Saddleworth Museum Oldham Historical Research Group Wednesday 19th November 7pm The Architecture of Terraced Housing in Oldham Talk by Roger Ivens Oldham Local Studies and Archives Other News Recently added records Prison Records The records include the Marshalsea Prison Commitment and Discharge Books, 1811-1842, and King’s Bench and Fleet Prison Discharge Books, 1734-1862. Parish records Wigan Parish Registers 1580-1979 Over 600,000 parish records have been added. Crew Lists Liverpool Crew Lists 1861-1919 Yorkshire baptism,marriage and burial records Dating back to 1538, the scanned and transcribed documents hail from six archives: North Yorkshire County Record Office, Doncaster Archives and Local Studies, East Riding Archives and Local Studies Service, Teeside Archives, Sheffield Archives and the Borthwick Institute for Archives in York. London Apprenticeship Abstracts 1442-1850 Monumental Inscriptions from cemeteries in the Eastbourne area. Ancestry and Findmypast are free to search at Oldham Local Studies and at libraries across the borough. National Archive Research Guidance nationalarchives.gov.uk/records/atoz/ This is a very useful guide to researching a variety of topics. National Library of Scotland Maps maps.nls.uk/index.html This free site has recently added maps of Edinburgh and London between the 1940s and 1960s. The Gazette website launches new military tool Researchers could find it easier to learn about their military forebears following updates to a free web resource. Recently revamped, thegazette.co.uk now provides an Awards and Accreditation section, enabling family historians to undertake searches for notices relating to honours and medals granted to military personnel since 1665, including the First World War. The website accompanies the London, Belfast and Edinburgh editions of The Gazette, which together act as the UK’s “official public record”. Useful Newsletters Do you receive any newsletters that you find useful? If so, please let us know. We hope you have enjoyed reading our newsletter. Thank you to those of you who have been in contact with us. We value your comments. If there is anything you would like to contribute, or suggestions of what to include in future newsletters, please email us at [email protected] Sue Forshaw, Newsletter Editor assisted by Irene Whitby & Mary Pendlebury
Posted on: Mon, 03 Nov 2014 17:11:49 +0000
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