Stories of the Great War from Southern Cemetery

I have been planning to visit the family grave of Mr and Mrs Parkes  for about a week ever since I came across the story of James Arthur Parkes who was according to one newspaper the oldest Manchester man to die during the Great War.*

Mr Parkes was a captain in the Durham Light Infantry and died at the age of 64.

His military career stretched back to at least 1878 when he served with 26th Regiment and seems to have continued throughout the last part of the 19th century.

But he died here in Chorlton in March 1917 which challenged the assumption I had made about him dying on active service somewhere on a battlefield.

That said his headstone revealed that two of his sons did die serving abroad.

Sergeant David Parkes of the 21st Battalion of the Manchester Regiment was killed on January 12 1917, and his brother Alfred of the 2nd Battalion of the Manchester’s died in a prisoner of war camp on May 27 1918.

Neither is buried in the family plot. David is in the war cemetery at Arras and Alfred in Cologne.

But both appear on the headstone and befitting the family’s loss the memorial includes a carved sword and military cap.

Sadly part of the headstone has now been covered and the names of some of the family buried here have been obscured.

In total along with Mr and Mrs Parkes, there are three of their children and a son in law interred in the plot.

Mrs Gowrie Parkes died in 1939, her son Alan in 1929, Louisa in 1958, Mary in 1962 and John Arthur Leak in 1963.

Now that raises the possibility that there are some living relatives and I am minded to see if I can make contact.

And like all such stories there will be much more.

Only yesterday I came across a reference to some of the Manchester’s who had also died in a POW camp and were buried in Weidenau which is 56 miles east of Cologne.**

In 1923 their bodies were exhumed and reburied in the South Cemetery, Cologne.

Now it may be that young David Parkes was one of them but that like so much of the story has yet to uncovered.

Picture; the headstone of Mr & Mrs Parkes and family in Southern Cemetery, 2014 courtesy of David Harrop.

Additional research by David Harrop who maintains a permanent exhibition to those who took part in the Great War in the Remembrance Hall close to the main gates of Southern Cemetery.

* James Arthur Parkes, from Chorlton, the oldest Manchester soldier to die in the Great War, http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/2014/08/james-arthur-parkes-from-chorlton.html

**Manchester Pals, Michael Stedman, 2004