Ilkley in The First World War by Edward Wild

CAPTAIN GEOFFREY SKIRROW 2/4 th BATTALION KINGS OWN YORKSHIRE LIGHT INFANTRY (Attached). KILLED IN ACTION 27 th AUGUST 1918, AGED 22. During the Summer of 1918 as the war on the Western Front progressed towards its conclusion there was no let up in the intensity of the fighting as the Allied armies drove against a faltering but still dangerous enemy. After the successes achieved by the Germans during their Spring Offensive the British slowly and steadily regained the ground that they had lost earlier in the year and were now poised to breach the fearsome defences of the Hindenburg Line. Even though the fighting now took place over the shattered battlefields of 1916 and 1917 fighting  was more mobile and success depended on speedy rather than meticulous planning; it was a type of warfare at which British Divisions seemed to excel. The 62 nd (West Riding) Division had only arrived in France in 1917 and was recruited largely from the old West Riding of Yorkshire. Its ...

PRIVATE 12904 LAWRENCE SYLVESTER ROBINSON SCOTT, 2 nd BATTALION WEST RIDING REGIMENT. DIED 7 th APRIL 1920, AGED 25. Lawrence Scott enlisted into the ‘Ilkley Pals’ Company which had been formed in late August 1914 after a recruiting meeting held in the Kings Hall on Station Road. During his service he was wounded on three occasions, but his death almost 18 months after the war had ended, would shock the town. Born in Skipton in 1894 Lawrence was one of four children of John Scott, a brewer, and his wife Emily. The family moved to Ilkley in 1911 and took a house on Sunset View off Leeds Road (now called Sunset Drive) before moving on the West View on Wells Road. He was sent to school as a boarder at Denstone College, Staffordshire before attending University College, Durham where he hoped, after his studies, to take Holy Orders. The start of the war interrupted his studies as he enlisted, with many men from Ilkley, into the 9 th Battalion West Riding Regiment. The ‘P...

PRIVATE 434909 EDWARD RENDER, 50 th BATTALION CANADIAN EXPEDITIONARY FORCE. KILLED IN ACTION, 18 th NOVEMBER 1916, AGED 20. Born in Ilkley on the 22 nd November 1895 Edward was the son of William, a mason, and Margaret Render who lived at 9, Dean Street. In 1909 the family decided to emigrate to Canada and left aboard the Empress of Britain, bound for Quebec moving to the town of Medicine Hat in Alberta. Edward’s father appears to have died not long after arriving in Canada and he lived with his mother and sisters 658 8 th Street SE and worked as a carpenter. Edward enlisted into the Canadian Army on the 6 th of February 1915 and was posted to the 50 th (Calgary) Battalion of the Canadian Expeditionary Force. His unit arrived in Britain in October 1915 where it remained until August 1916. Posted to the Somme Sector on the 18 th November that year, the 50 th were in the front line near to the village of Courcellette where it was involved in a successful attack again...

PRIVATE WILLIAM (BILLY) HAYWOOD 1/7 th BATTALION DURHAM LIGHT INFANTRY. DIED (INFLUENZA) 23 rd FEBRUARY 1919 AGED 19. In mid February 1919 young William Haywood arrived home on leave from his unit which was stationed in Belgium. Clearly very ill with what was soon diagnosed as influenza his condition deteriorated, pneumonia set in and within a week he was dead. William was born in Ilkley in 1899 the eldest son of Joseph and Clara Haywood who lived at Springs Cottage on Springs Lane. Joseph was a carter and a staunch Methodist who worshipped with his family at Christchurch on The Grove. Every Sunday afternoon William would help the younger members of the congregation with their reading and help out in the little Sunday School. He was also member of the local Volunteers Company based at the Drill Hall on Leeds Road. The Volunteers were a sort of WW1 equivalent of the Home Guard and were made up of young boys under military age waiting call up along with older men too old t...

GUNNER/SHOEING SMITH, 776142 WALTER THIRKELL, 245   BRIGADE ROYAL FIELD ARTILLERY. DIED (INFLUENZA), 3 rd MARCH 1919 AGED 28 Walter Thirkell was another victim of the flu pandemic which struck over the winter of 1918-19. At the end of February 1919 he had been released from the army after serving throughout the war. His skills as an engine fitter on the railways were urgently needed in peacetime Britain and so his discharge was brought forward. He had only been back with his parents at 6 Springs Terrace when he developed symptoms of flu which progressed to bronchial-pneumonia from which he succumbed on the 3 rd of March. Born in the village of Carnforth, Lancashire, Walter was the youngest of 12 children born to William and Elizabeth Thirkell. His father worked on the railways as a foreman fitter on the Midland Railway and when Walter was very young brought his family to Ilkley. Walter too would work for the Midland Railway like many of the male members of his famil...

SERGEANT 65137 EDGAR EARNSHAW, 1 st BATTALION NORTHUMBERLAND FUSILIERS. DIED (INFLUENZA) 27 th FEBRUARY 1919 AGED 25. Edgar Earnshaw was born in West Ardsley, near Wakefield, on 31 st October 1893, but moved to Ilkley at the age of 5 to live 31 Middleton Road when his father became the organist and choirmaster at Christchurch on The Grove. His parents John and Annice had 7 children in total but 6 of them had died in infancy leaving Edgar the sole survivor. A pupil at Ilkley Grammar School where he represented the school at cricket, Edgar was also a musical prodigy. An accomplished violinist, pianist and organist he also had a noted singing voice. During his childhood he won numerous competitions and awards across the north of England for his musical abilities and as an adult would give recitals, especially on the piano, often attended by hundreds of people. After completing his education he remained living with his parents and took a post as a bank clerk at the Yorkshi...

SAPPER 237847 WILLIAM CLIFFORD HABISHAW, 102 AIR LINE SECTION ROYAL ENGINEERS. ASPHYXIATED 29th DECEMBER 1918 AGED 31 Born at 4 Richmond Place, Ilkley in 1888 William was the son of Joseph Habishaw, a bath house attendant, and his wife Mary. The family would later move to a house on Belle Vue Terrace which they ran as a small lodging house. Educated locally, William trained as an electrical engineer but at the beginning of the war was employed as a turf accountant. In the aut umn of 1915 he married local woman, Margaret Moon and together they moved into Glenholme on Parish Ghyll Drive. William had originally enlisted into the West Yorkshire Regiment in December 1915 but his call up was deferred until May of the following year and in August 1916 posted to the Machine Gun Corps. By the spring of 1917 presumably because of his electrical engineering training was sent to join a signals company of the Royal Engineers where he learned to be a telephonist. William remained in B...