Andrew Jackson - Accringtons Pals: The Full Story

First published in Great Britain in 2013 by
Pen & Sword Military
an imprint of
Pen & Sword Books Ltd
47 Church Street
Barnsley
South Yorkshire
S70 2AS

Copyright Andrew Jackson 2013

9781783468829

The right of Andrew Jackson to be identified as Author of this Work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

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More than twenty-five years have passed since the publication of William Turners Accrington Pals, the first book to provide a detailed account of the history of 11/East Lancashire, the Kitchener battalion founded and raised in the early weeks of the First World War by John Harwood, then mayor of the Lancashire textile and machinery town of Accrington. While a reappraisal of the Accrington Pals story is anyway timely with much fresh material having emerged in the intervening years Turners book told only part of the remarkable contribution made by Harwood to Britains war effort. Less than twenty weeks after recruitment for the Accrington Pals had been completed, Harwood took on the responsibility for raising a local artillery formation, the Accrington and Burnley Howitzers. Harwood himself was quoted after the war as saying it was only matter for regret that the Howitzers were broken up into six-gun batteries and that their career could not be followed. In this he was mistaken; although the Howitzers gun batteries were dispersed early in 1917, the careers of the two Accrington batteries can be traced through to the end of the war. Moreover, by bringing together the stories of the Pals and the Howitzers, it becomes possible to follow, through their experiences, every major campaign in which the British Army took part on the Western Front from 1916 onwards.

Lists of those who enrolled into the Pals and the Howitzers on their formation can be found on the authors website at www.pals.org.uk/palslist.htm and www.pals.org.uk/howitzers/list.htm respectively.

I hope my friends in Burnley and Chorley will forgive the title of the book, for Harwood was able to raise his two local formations only with the support of those towns and their communities; truly they were Accringtons Pals.

I owe my interest in Accringtons role in the First World War to my father, Maurice, with whom I made the first of many visits to the battlefields of the Western Front and beyond in the early 1970s.

Of those who have given generously of their time, help and knowledge throughout my work, I would like particularly to thank John Garwood, David Ingham, Mike Townend and the late Denis Otter.

For information on the Harwood family, the help given by Mike Harwood, Nin and Pen Harwood, Andr and Justine Gernez, Heather Fereday, Anne and Paul Willett, and Jayne Waring has been invaluable.

I am grateful to staff at the following archives for allowing me access to collections for which they are responsible and, where requested, for their permission to quote from documents: British Library, The National Archives, Royal Geographical Society, Imperial War Museum, Lancashire Infantry Museum, Royal Artillery Museum, Liddle Collection at the University of Leeds, North West Sound Archive, Accrington, Burnley and Chorley public libraries.

I should also like to thank all of the following who have contributed to this book, and apologize sincerely to anyone whom I may have inadvertently overlooked: Nelly and Jacquie Ainslie, Bob Ashton, Anthony Battersby, Peter Bell, David and Derek Bent, Enid and Stuart Briggs, Gillian Brown, Malcolm Bury, Ross Davies, Neil Erskine and Bindy Wollen, Elnora Ferguson, Tracey Gardner and Dorothy Parkinson, David and Barbara Gay, John and Honor Gorst, Gerald and Pam Hargreaves, Kit Harvey, Dennis Hounsell, Hardy Huber, Pat and Roger Kay, Judy Langton and John Sayer, Marjorie Lloyd-Jones, Jane Maclean, Barry McAleenan, Frances Morris, Diccon Nelson-Roberts, Steven Owen, Jane Ramagge and Michael Ritzema, Robert and Tony Robinson, Barbara Rogers, John Slinger, Walter Slinger, Sue Baker Wilson and Steve McGreal, Hannah Sloane, Diana Stockford, Ian Thomas, Terry Whittaker.

Last, but not least, special thanks go to my wife, Alyson, without whose help, encouragement, support, patience and cartographic skills this book could not have been completed.

While every effort has been made to trace and acknowledge the holders of all copyright material, I trust that anyone whose copyright I have unwittingly infringed will accept my sincere apologies.

The following abbreviations are used in the text and notes:

Throughout the book, the coalition between Germany, Austria-Hungary, Turkey and Bulgaria is referred to as the Central Powers, whereas that principally between France, Great Britain, Russia and Italy is referred to as the Allies.