A last word on one Chorlton family and the Great War

The gravestone of the family, 2014

I think this will be the last story for a while on James Arthur Parkes who was the oldest Manchester man to die in the Great War.

He was 63 and had served his country since at least 1878 first in the 26th Regiment of Foot and ended his career in the Durham Light Infantry.

His time with the Colours had taken him to Scotland and County Durham before returning to Manchester.

And as the story unfolded it became clear he hadn’t died on a battlefront but exactly what he was doing back in uniform at 63 evaded me until Lawrence dug in a different direction and came up with this.

356 Manchester Regiment outside the Town Hall, 1915

“By coincidence I was checking who from Chorltonville was a casualty in the Great War. James Arthur Parkes lived at 9 Meadow Bank. 

A former soldier he enlisted again in August 1915 worked at the recruitment centres at Houldsworth Hall, Deansgate and at the Town Hall. 

He was made a Captain in the Durham Light Infantry back in 1897 and was given that title again on rejoining. He died at home.”

Now I have no doubt that more will come out especially about his two sons who died serving with the Manchester Regiment, and the family who continued to live in Chorltonville into the 1960s.

Picture; the grave stone of Mr Parkes and his family in Southern Cemetery, July 2014, from the collection of David Harrop and 356, Manchester Regiment Lord Kitchener, Thomas E Scholey, May 21 1915, m08695, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass

Additional research by Lawrence Beadle

James Arthur Parkes, from Chorlton, the oldest Manchester soldier to die in the Great War

James Arthur Parkes was the oldest Manchester soldier to die in the Great War.

Your King and Country Thank you, date unknown

He was 64 years of age, had been born in Chorlton on Medlock and his family were living at 9 Meadow Bank in Chorlton when he died on March 29 1917.

Now given the mountain of statistics about the war it would be easy to pass this fact by.

After all in total 10,995 men from the city died during the conflict, the first being Charles Routledge of Andrew Street who died in August of 1914 and Thomas McLean Dunlop of Elvey Street who was killed on the last day of the war.*

And in between there are the depressing list of casualties which include the total killed on the first day of the Battle of the Somme along with the youngest man to perish and much more.

But I was drawn to Mr Parkes because of his age which given that we think of the Great War as a young mans’ war rather marks him out as significant.

And behind that simple record is a fascinating story that begins in Chorlton on Medlock and runs out across Canada, Scotland and northern England and finishes in a family grave in Sourthern Cemetry.

I know that he was born in 1854 in Chorlton on Medlock and that he married Margaret Gowrie in 1878 in New Brunswick in Canada.

This is at least the obvious inference given that five of seven children were born there between 1879 and 1891.

He appears to have settled with his family briefly in Scotland in the April of 1881 and again a decade later in 1891.

From the Daily Mail, 1916

But was also in Canada during most of the 1880s before returning to the UK in the middle of 1891 and moving on again to Barnard Castle in County Durham in 1894 which is where the family were still residing in 1898.

Not that any of this surprises me.  This was after all one of the centuries when people were migrating to the Empire and were coming home again more frequently than we might think.

That said the clue to James’s wandering is there in his occupation.

In 1911 he described himself as a retired army officer, while in 1881 he was a  Sergeant 26th Regt and a ten years later a Quarter Master Army at the Hamilton Barracks.

Now the 26th Regiment of Foot became a Rifle Regiment and adopted the regimental name of the Cameronians in 1881 under the army reforms.**

So his postings in Canada and across Britain make sense. And with a bit more research it should be possible to match the family homes with the movement of the regiment.

All of which brings me to his death in 1917.  I had assumed it was on a battlefield but that would be stretching it given his age.

Greetings from the Front, date unknown

He was by then a Captain in the Durham Light Infantry and was buried in Southern Cemetery on April 3 1917 in a plot which was to include his wife and children.

In time I will fill in the missing bits including where they were in 1901 and his role in the Durham Light Infantry along with a cause and place of death.

All of which is for later except to say that sometimes you can be too clever.

I had thought Mr Parkes served in Canada, given that the 1911 census has his wife and some of his children listed as being  born in Glasgow and Hamiliton NB which I took to be New Brunswick but appears to have been a mistake.

Earlier census returns record Mrs Parkes and the children as being born in Scotland upon which turns a reversal of James Arthur’s time in Canada which I had confidently described in earlier stories.

Ah well not everything is as you think.

Pictures;  from the collection of David Harrop

*The First World War and the price Greater Manchester Paid, Manchester Evening News August 4 2014

**Regiments of Foot, H.L. Wilkes, 1974

A Chorlton family and the Great War

Sometimes stories and the people behind them just do not go away, instead you get drawn deeper into their lives.

On the Western Front, a Daily Mail postcard

And so it is with James Arthur Parkes and his family.*

I first came across him in a newspaper account which described him as the oldest Manchester man to die in Great War.

He was 63 and had served his country, since at least 1878, first in the 26th Regiment of Foot and ended his career in the Durham Light Infantry.

His time with the Colours had taken him to Scotland and County Durham before returning to Manchester.

His was all the more remarkable a career as he rose through the ranks to become a seargent by 1881, and a Quartermaster a decade later with which came the rank of Captain.

This I suspect was an achievement and one that he was clearly proud of describing himself as “Army Officer, retired Captain of Infantry” in 1901 and “Retired military officer” in 1911.

From an army pay book

All of which begs the question of what he was doing in uniform in 1917.  He is listed on the Commonwealth War Graves but died in Chorlton and is buried in Southern Cemetery.

His military records for the Great War are missing and so I am not sure whether he returned to regimental duties.

I do know that two of his sons died fighting on the Western Front.

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 in Germany on May 27 1918.

The family had settled in Greenheys by 1901 and sometime between the beginning of 1911 and April of that year moved to Meadowbank in Chorltonville  which remained the family home up till the mid 1960s.

Now all of this is important because often the official records go dark during the 20th century, a combination of the 100 year rule on confidentiality and that simple fact that many documents just get lost or thrown away.

What we do have are the usual fragmentary bits and pieces.  The family gravestone is there in Southern Cemetery along with the official entry in the Commonwealth War Graves database, the census returns from 1881 onwards and set of probate documents for various members of the family.

The family grave in Southern Cemetery

But stubbornly other records remain hidden for the time being including the identity of Alan Parkes who was interred in the family plot in 1929.

I rather think he may have been a grandson given that no Alan Parkes shows up on any of the family census returns from 1881 through to 1911.

So as you do I went searching for his possible parents and again drew more blanks although I did discover the wedding of Edward the eldest son to Jessie Wynstanley in 1912 and then like so often the trail ends in a dead end.

So that pretty much is that except to say that sometimes you can be too clever.

I had thought Mr Parkes served in Canada, given that the 1911 census has his wife and some of his children listed as being  born in Glasgow and Hamiliton NB which I took to be New Brunswick but appears to have been a mistake.

Earlier census returns record Mrs Parkes and the children as being born in Scotland upon which turns a reversal of James Arthur’s time in Canada which I had confidently described in earlier stories.

Ah well not everything is as you think.

Pictures; from the collection of David Harrop


*James Arthur Parkes, http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/James%20Arthur%20Parkes

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