The mystery of what the Manchester man who lived in Stockport was doing in Burnley

George, Nellie & Duncan, circa 1915

I am no nearer knowing the mystery of what George Davison was doing in Burnley and I think I am going to need some help.

He was born and grew up in Manchester, began his married life in Hulme and then settled in Stockport where the family pretty much lived for the rest of the 20th century.

And when George was sent to Woolwich and later Ireland during the Great War his wife Nellie and son followed him for short periods.

But the family home was from 1911 in Stockport which makes their time in Burnley in 1914 a bit of a mystery.

Now I know he was there because during the winter of 1914 he was in the Burnley Volunteer Training Corps and we have one letter addressed to number 4 Fairholme Road, Townley, Burnley.

The letter to Mrs Davison in Burnely

Sometime during the end of 1914 he had enlisted and by January he was in Woolwich.

Nellie appears to have moved back to Hulme for short periods but always retained the home in Stockport although at times she sub let it.

The obvious conclusion is that he was working in Burnley and given the later practice of sub letting the Stockport cottage that would seem reasonable.

But to be sure it will be a matter of checking out the electoral registers and rate records for Burnley and here it would be useful to have someone on the ground to do the research.

Of course there will be those who mutter that it is all very small beer but I think it is important because we do have a large amount of material much of it written by George to Nellie during the war along with some courting letters, school reports and official documents which follow him from his entry into school to his death on the Western Front in 1918 and continue into the middle 1950s.

St John's

There is also the chance that it will shed some more light on the Burnley Volunteer Training Corps which was the Home Guard of the First World War.

So far I have come across little about the organization other than newspaper reports, an enamelled badge and two pictures of the men on parade.

When one of these pictures was posted the church behind the men was identified as St John the Evangelist in Worsthorne which is just outside Burnley.

There are references to the Corps parading there and so it was nice to have a location for the picture.

And that is the value of local knowledge.

So I hope someone out there will help with finding out more about George and Nellie’s stay in Burnley

Picture; of the Davison family circa 1915 & St John the Evangelist date unknown from the collection of David Harrop