Names on a Didsbury war memorial …….. no.1 ……. James Biddle

It started with a postcard to a house on Belfield Road in Didsbury and by degree became a story.

In this case it featured a name on the war memorial facing Didsbury Library, and  as so often happens, it started with someone else’s piece of research.

So, I have my old friend David Harrop to thank for setting me off on the search for James and George Biddle.

David came across a picture postcard sent by George Biddle in 1917 during the Great War to his parents.

The picture on the front is of a French chateau, and the message is brief, added to which the censor has blotted out the location of where George is stationed.

But it was enough to strike a chord with David who remembered that there was a James Biddle listed on the Didsbury war memorial which set him thinking if the two men were related.

And they were.  George had been born in 1885, and James seven years later and they grew up with their three siblings in the home of George and Mary Biddle at 16 Belfield Road, Didsbury.

In 1911, their father described himself as a land surveyor, while James was working as an engineering apprentice and his brother William was a “motor car designer”.

By then, George and his two sisters had moved out, leaving his father, James and William alone in the house with Ms Edith Barsby who was employed as “domestic servant”.

In time, I will discover more about the family, but for now there is just a record of the place and date of James’s death, which was on September 29, 1918, just under two months before the Armistice and was buried in Buqouy Road Cemetery, Ficheux , which is 9 kilometres from Arras.

Now, I say that is all, but only yesterday David came across the order of service at the unveiling ceremony on Saturday,  July 2, 1921  for the Didsbury War Memorial, which was dedicated to “The memory of the sacred dead of this village who, having left all that was dear to them endured hardships, faced dangers, and finally paid the supreme sacrifice in defence of our King and Country”.

And amongst the fourteen names on the Committee charged with the creation of the memorial was a George Biddle who I assume was James’s father.

I can not begin to think what he felt during the committee meetings and finally the unveiling ceremony.

Location; Didsbury

Pictures; courtesy of David Harrop