Armistice means the ending of hostilities before peace negotiations start. At the end of the First World War several armistices were signed by different countries before the main agreement to end the war, now known as ‘The Armistice’, was signed between the Germans and the Allies on November 11th 1918, over four years after the war [...]
World War 1 was fought in different parts of Europe, and in other parts of the world such as The Middle East and on the seas. From the records we have searched we have found that soldiers from St. James-the-Less fought, died and are buried in France, Germany and what is now Iraq. Many men [...]
Between early August 1914, when the war started, and 1916 over 150 men from St James-the-Less had joined the armed forces and gone to war, nine were reported dead and numerous men injured. By the time the war ended, on November 11 1918, over four years after it started, 30 men from St James-the-Less were [...]
Between late August 1914 and May 1915 250,000 Belgian refugees escaping the war in their country arrived in Britain. Now, one hundred years later, Europe is again dealing with the problem of large numbers of refugees, some escaping war. It is interesting to compare how British people reacted a hundred years ago with how they [...]
Despite the many thousands in the UK who thought it was their patriotic duty to enlist and fight the enemy at the start of the war, there were many ordinary people who objected to the war on moral or religious grounds. Conscription When the war effort needed more men to join the armed services, the [...]
On Sunday, 17th December 2015 – Gaudete Sunday, the third in Advent - and a hundred years after many of the 25 parishioners had gone off to war, the memorial was blessed, in a special service of dedication, by Parish Priest, Canon David Lupton, two days after the installation was completed. Central to the poignant [...]
During the autumn term of the First World War commemoration years (2014 to 2018) Year 6 pupils study the causes and impact of the war on their local community, focussing in particular on the lives of our 25 parishioners. In November 2015, close to Remembrance Sunday, the class attended a learning session presented by Lancashire [...]
James Leslie Crossley, the Great-uncle of our present day parishioner, Maria Duckworth, was born in Rawtenstall in 1998. James was the only son in a family of 5 children, all of whom attended St James the Less church school. The 1901 census shows the family at 7 Double Street, with James’ mother, Mary Ann who [...]
Thomas and Bridget Halstead were parents to six children, all born between 1888 and 1899 as the family moved around different towns across east Lancashire and the West Riding of Yorkshire. Bridget was an Irish immigrant from Dublin and Thomas, born in Haslingden, to where his family had moved some years earlier from a remote [...]
Joshua’s last known relative in the parish passed away in 2015, not long after providing some information about him and his service in the war. Further detail about Joshua has proved difficult to find and it may be that his military records were amongst those destroyed or badly damaged during the second world war. What [...]
