William Eric Lunt a soldier of the Great War

William Eric Lunt, was born here in 1895, and died of wounds in the 36th Casualty Clearing Station at the Somme on October 14th 1916.

This was the story I had decided to tell, but sometimes the stories just tumble out, crossing time and connecting the Chorlton of the early 20th century with that rural township I have come to know so well.

And this is what has happened today.  The Lunt family lived in Chorlton and made their living from farming for all of the 19th century.  In 1845 they rented two acres of land off Moss Lane* from the Egerton estate and were market gardeners growing a variety of food for the Manchester markets.

His smallholding was mostly orchard, stretching back from Moss Lane to Rough Leach Gutter and was a smallish amount of land, and like many of our market gardeners Lunt may also have had other jobs as well. And we know that he paid 4s. 7d a week in rent and in that cottage he and his wife brought up six children.



Above; The Lunt home and land on field numbered 18.

Not only this but we can follow him through his activities in the local Methodist church and his participation in our first brass band which started up sometime in the 1820s.

And the Lunt family perfectly reflect the changing nature of Chorlton.  As the 19th century came to a close more and more of the agricultural land was given over to housing. Perhaps the Lunt’s saw it coming and while they may have retained their land they had by 1901 opened a shop at number 60 Sandy Lane selling fruit and young William had chosen to work as a warehouseman apprentice.

Which brings me to where I had intended to start.  William was just 19 when he joined up on September 5th 1914; just one month after the war had broken out.  He was a fit young man weighing 129 lbs and was 5’ 11 inches.  His army records describe his complexion as sallow, his eyes brown and his hair dark, and that at present is all we know of his physical appearance.

In fact that is about all we have, for though there are eighteen military documents, as well his birth certificate and two census returns, none of them shed any light on who he really was, his likes and dislikes, or whether he was serious, humorous or like most of us a bit of both.

He was to become part of that new Kitchener’s army of young idealistic volunteers many of who were to die at the battle of the Somme.  I wish there was more.  I know he had joined up at Ardwick, was assigned to the 8th Battalion of the Manchester Regiment and remained in Britain until the summer of 1916 when he embarked at Folkestone landing on July 27 at Boulogne.

It should be possible to piece together the next few months from the official history of the regiment and from the war diary the unit filled in for every day of the conflict.  But at present perhaps all I can say is that he was caught up in the Battle of the Somme, was wounded on October 12th and died two days later of his wounds.
“The 36th Casualty Clearing Station was at Heilly from April 1916. It was joined in May by the 38th, and in July by the 2/2nd London, but these hospitals had all moved on by early June 1917. .......  There are now 2,890 Commonwealth servicemen of the First World War buried or commemorated in this cemetery. Only 12 of the burials are unidentified and special memorials are erected to 21 casualties whose graves in the cemetery could not be exactly located. The cemetery also contains 83 German graves. The burials in this cemetery were carried out under extreme pressure and many of the graves are either too close together to be marked individually, or they contain multiple burials. Some headstones carry as many as three sets of casualty details, and in these cases, regimental badges have had to be omitted. Instead, these badges, 117 in all, have been carved on a cloister wall on the north side of the cemetery. The cemetery was designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens.  

Mericourt-l'Abbe is a village approximately 19 kilometres north-east of Amiens and 10 kilometres south-west of Albert. Heilly Station Cemetery is about 2 kilometres south-west of Mericourt-l'Abbe, on the south side of the road to Corbie.”**

It is not much of a record for what had been a young life with promise and a future.  And I suppose that is the point.  After almost a century the grief of the death of so many has faded but not I think the sadness that so little is left of who this young man was.

*Sandy Lane

**http://ww1cemeteries.com/ww1frenchcemeteries/heillystation.htm

Pictures; Allied Victory Medal, awarded to servicemen and women who had served between August 1914 and November 1918,detail from the tithe map of 1845 showing the cottage and land of the Lunt’s courtesy of Philip Lloyd, and the Heilly Station Cemetery, Mericourt-l@ Abbe Somme, courtesy of WW1 Cemetries.com http://ww1cemeteries.com/index.htm

William Eric Lunt ........ a Chorlton soldier from the Great War

I am looking at a picture of William Eric Lunt which I never expected to see.

William Eric Lunt, circa 1914

He was born here in 1895, and died of wounds in the 36th Casualty Clearing Station at the Somme on October 14th 1916.

The Lunt family lived in Chorlton and made their living from farming for all of the 19th century.

In 1845 they rented two acres of land off Moss Lane from the Egerton estate and were market gardeners growing a variety of food for the Manchester markets.

His smallholding was mostly orchard, stretching back from Moss Lane to Rough Leach Gutter and was a smallish amount of land, and like many of our market gardeners Mr Lunt may also have had other jobs as well.

And we know that he paid 4s. 7d a week in rent and in that cottage he and his wife brought up six children.

William and family circa 1905

Which brings me back William who was just 19 when he joined up on September 5th 1914; just one month after the war had broken out.

He was a fit young man weighing 129 lbs and was 5’ 11 inches.

His army records describe his complexion as sallow, his eyes brown and his hair dark, and that at present is all we know of his physical appearance.

In fact that is about all we have, for though there are eighteen military documents, as well his birth certificate and two census returns, none of them shed any light on who he really was, his likes and dislikes, or whether he was serious, humorous or like most of us a bit of both.

But up until yesterday I only had the one picture of him outside the family shop on Sandy Lane when he was about ten years old.

That in itself was one of those rare accidents where a photograph in the collection can contribute to a story of someone you have been researching.

The scroll, 1917

And now we have a second photograph which I think must be very close to the time he enlisted.

It was sent over by Julie Bryce who wrote, “I came across your blog post on William Eric Lunt. 

I'm one of his his great nieces and I have a few photos of him and some documentation commemorating his death which was sent to his parents home at 60 Sandy Lane. 

My daughter sent me a photo of the sign for the William Lunt Gardens in Chorlton and asked me if I thought it might be a relative. I was amazed to find the new estate was named in honour of Uncle Willie as representative of all those of Chorlton who lost their lives in the First World War. 

His sister Gladys May (my grandmother) would have been very proud.”

And it is fitting that the photograph has a place in my book Manchester Remembering 1914-18  because not only does William Eric Lunt feature in the book but so does the story of the naming of the road here in Chorlton.

I had been asked to suggest names to be considered for the honour and Mr Lunt’s seemed most appropriate.

An embroiderd silk postcard,  1914-18

But this isn’t quite the end of the story because just a month before the photograph arrived another relative made contact.

This was Margret Irvine who came across the story and commented

“Councillor Newman has kindly forwarded to me your information about William Lunt. 

Thank you so much for this. I knew some of it from family talk, my own research and recently from your own web pages, but the mystery remained as to why William should have been selected rather than any of the other WW1 casualties, so thank you for an explanation of that.”

I am pleased that William has come back out of the shadows and has gained wider recogntion.

The memorial, 2014

He was to become part of that new Kitchener’s army of young idealistic volunteers many of who were to die at the battle of the Somme.

I wish there was more.

I know he had joined up at Ardwick, was assigned to the 8th Battalion of the Manchester Regiment and remained in Britain until the summer of 1916 when he embarked at Folkestone landing on July 27 at Boulogne.

He is commemorated on the memorial in the gardens of the Methodist Church on Manchester Road.

Location; Chorlton-cum-Hardy

Pictures; William Eric Lunt, circa 1914 and the scroll, 1917 from  the collection of Julie Bryce, William circs 1905, from the Lloyd Collection, embroidered silk postcard, circa 1914-18 courtesy  of David Harrop, and the memorial in the Methodist Church, Manchester Road, 2014, from Tony Goulding

*A new book on Manchester and the Great War, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/A%20new%20book%20on%20Manchester%20and%20the%20Great%20War

Manchester Remembering 1914-18 by Andrew Simpson was published by the History Press on February 2 2017

The Lunt Family of Chorlton-cum-Hardy another story from Tony Goulding

This is “Lane End” as the junction of Sandy Lane and Barlow Moor Road was known in the 19th century. 

Lane End, Chorlton-cum-Hardy - 29-09-1902

In this vicinity the censuses and Rate books of the Chorlton-cum-Hardy township from 1840s until the beginning of the 20th century show the homes of various members of the Lunt family who were renting land from Lord Egerton to work as market gardeners.

The Lunt family were long established in the township and are found extensively in the records, dating back to the 18th Century, of both the Established Church (St. Clements) (1) and the non-conformists. There is too a will of William Lunt, a farmer, dated 27th January 1817.

The head of the family in the 1841 census is George Lunt who died, aged 50, in September 1853 and was buried in St. Clement’s Churchyard on 18th September. Following his death, the tenancy passed to his widow Jane (née Gorbutt) his second wife who he had married, on 3rd November 1834, at St. John’s Church, Deansgate, Manchester. Jane in turn died in October 1864 and was buried in St. Clement’s churchyard on October 30th (2)

John Henry Lunt's shop Sandy Lane circa 1900

For the next 40 plus years the patriarch of what became a very prominent family in late Victorian and Edwardian Chorlton-cum-Hardy was George Lunt’s eldest son, William.

 William was born in Chorlton-cum-Hardy on 10th September 1831 to George and his first wife Alice (née Cookson). (3) His mother died in March 1834 and was interred in St. Clement’s churchyard on the 20th of March. 

By the end of the 19th century the growth of the township’s population had resulted in altered economic conditions for the area’s market gardeners through a combination of the expansion of local markets and pressure on the agricultural land for housing. 

Two of William’s sons took the opportunity to vertically integrate their businesses by opening Greengrocer shops to sell in part their own produce.

John Henry retained the link with Lane End with a shop at 60, Sandy Lane, while George William’s shop was this one at 119, Beech Road.

119, Beech Road, Chorlton-cum-Hardy - 2018

The First World War was particularly devastating for the family with four of William’s grandsons being killed in the conflict.

The first to die was George William’s son Serjeant Herbert Lunt of the 21st Battalion, Manchester Regiment who was killed during one of the bloodiest days of the Battle of the Somme, 14th July 1916.  He was buried where he fell and was later re-interred in the Flatiron Copse Cemetery, Mametz, France. His brother, George, who was also a Serjeant in the same unit died on 2nd April 1917. 

He has no known grave and is commemorated as one of the 34,799 men listed on the Arras Memorial. Between these two deaths, John Henry’s only son Pte. William Eric Lunt died of wounds on the 14th of October at the 36 (Heilly) Clearing Station, France and buried in its attached cemetery. 

He had been wounded in action on the 12th of October when his unit the 18th Battalion, Manchester Regiment suffered horrendous casualties while attacking a heavily defended German position near the strategically important town of Bapaume. Of 350 men who “went over the top” only 100 returned to the British Lines. 

Finally, on 4th October 1917, a third of George William’s sons, Pte. Arthur Lunt of the 11th Battalion, Manchester Regiment was killed in action during attack an on Poelcappelle, Belgium as part of the Third Battle of Ypres. He, again, has no known grave and is one of almost 35,000 names on the Tyne Cot Memorial. 

He is also remembered alongside his three brothers on this gravestone of his parents (George William, died 4th December 1920 and Fanny, died 7th November 1947) (4) in the Church of England section of Southern Cemetery, Manchester – Grave G.838.

Grave G.838.

Besides John Henry and George William mentioned above William also had four daughters; Alice Ann, Mary Jane, Margaret, and Elizabeth. (5) All four of whom, unusually for the era, survived to adulthood, each also remaining unmarried and making independent livings as dressmakers and milliners.  Alice Ann was the first to set up on her own moving to a house on High Lane, Chorlton-cum-Hardy where the 1881 census shows her working as a dressmaker. By the 1891 census she had been joined by two of her sisters, Mary Jane and Margaret in “The Cottage” High Lane. No occupation is recorded for Mary Jane while Margaret is shown as a milliner.

All four sisters were reunited in time for the 1901 census which record shows them living together at number 25, High Lane, along with their aged, 69-year-old father, William.

William died on 27th July 1906, his wife Mary (née Wedell), (6) who he had married at All Saints Church, Chorlton-on-Medlock, Manchester on 4th January 1854, pre-deceased him on 23rd April 1891 as did his eldest daughter Alice Ann, on 6th April 1904. 

A second of the four sisters, Mary Jane, died at the High Lane residence on 15th January 1917. Soon after this the two remaining sisters moved back to a property on Sandy Lane, Number 70, where they continued in business as milliners until the 1930s. Margaret passed away in August 1931 and Elizabeth in February 1939. 

Grave G.838

All four sisters plus both their parents and three children of George William and Fanny who died in infancy, Fanny (1884), Albert (1887), and Florence (1895) are interred in grave F. 878 in the non-conformist section of Southern Cemetery, Manchester.

There is a curiosity in the inscription in which William is described as the: -

 “Beloved husband of the above Mary & Emma Lunt”. 

This would seem to suggest that William re-married after Mary’s death, but I could find no further evidence of this.

As a final note, none of the cottages occupied by the family in the 19th century have survived, however Brownhills Buildings, one of which, No. 4, was the home of George William Lunt for over a year from March 1889, which date from the middle of the 19th century were still standing as this photograph shows in 1972. 

In one of those links which can so enhance my appreciation of History for more than a decade before this picture was taken, I lived on the adjacent Ansdell Avenue and spent many hours playing in the entry between the two properties. 

Brownhills Buildings, Sandy Lane, Chorlton-cum-Hardy –1972

Also, I occasionally visited one of them; possibly the one that had once been George William’s home. 

On this theme too, 25, High Lane, is the house next door to what used to be the home of the minister of Macpherson Memorial Primitive Methodist church. (Handy for the non-conformist members of the family!). The adjacent church had a Sunday School now the Manchester Centre for Buddhist Meditation. After the closure of the church this building served for a couple of years as an annexe of St. John’s Roman Catholic Primary School, and I was one of the pupils who were taught there.

Pictures: - 

Lane End and Brownhills Buildings (1973) m18193 by P.C. & m17696 by H. Milligan respectively, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information, and Archives Manchester City Council http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass Others from the collection of Tony Goulding.

Notes: -

1) The earliest record in the parish registers is for a baptism of Jane Lunt the daughter of a farmer William and his wife Betty on 6th March 1774.

2) Unfortunately, there isn’t an existing gravestone recording this grave nor are the details listed on the map produced prior to the landscaping of the graveyard in the 1970s. Presumably it was one of those listed as indecipherable.

3) The wedding of George Lunt and Alice Cookson took place on 8th June 1822 in the Collegiate Church (now the Cathedral), Manchester.

4) George William married Fanny (née Plant) in the Chorlton Registration District during the September quarter of 1883.

5) The eldest five of William’s children were born while he was working away from Chorlton-cum-Hardy as a domestic gardener in Bloomsbury Lane, Timperley, Cheshire.

6) The birth name of William’s wife is uncertain as her father’s name recorded on her marriage record is James Layland.

Acknowledgements: - Besides the usual rich source of data from The Newspaper Archive and other records on “Find My Past”.  I have delved into the records of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission and the especially of The Manchester Regiment Group for details of the actions around the deaths of the four Lunts. https://www.themanchesters.org

Finally, I have referred on occasion to Andrew Simpson’s comprehensive study of Chorlton-cum-Hardy in the 19th century “The Story of Chorlton-cum-Hardy" 2012.

Stories of the Manchester Pals ..........

Now I am rereading Manchester Pals by Michael Steadman, which is a detailed account of the formation of the Manchester Pals battalions.*

James Callahan of the 8th City Battalion

In just a short few months from August into November 1914, the city raised eight Pals battalions.

The idea was rooted in the belief that men would more readily join up if they could remain with their work companions or the friends they had grown up with.

As a recruitment plan it worked, but in the carnage that followed the great battles of 1916 and 1917 on the Western Front it proved a disaster for small tight knit communities, which experienced the loss of so many young men in the space of a few months.

But in the euphoria following the declaration of war that grim outcome was unforeseen by those who flocked to “join the colours”.

Men like William Eric Lunt from Chorlton who enlisted in the September of 1914 aged 19 and was posted to the 8th Battalion and my friend Joe’s dad who served in the same unit, as well Private Sidney Bone of Withington who was badly wounded on the first day of the Somme, and died aged just 24 in 1920.**

Bit by bit their stories are coming out of the shadows, and Mr. Stedman’s book offers up a context to their service.

An embroidered silk postcard, circa 1914-18

Along with a detailed description of the experiences of each of the battalions, he describes the city on the eve of this great conflict, along with how those who enlisted and survived made their way in the years of peace that followed the end of the war.

Now a full century and a bit after the outbreak of the Great War when all the combatants have died, it is easy to treat them as just a piece of history.  And leafing through the books and photographs they appear as either eager young men in ill fitting uniforms or frail individuals relying on walking sticks or wheelchairs.

But that is to forget that for most of those who came back, they had a full life ahead, and those war time experiences were but a short interruption to a life of gainful employment and raising a family.

It is sobering to think that when I was born my grandfather who served on the Western Front was just 53, his brothers were only a tad older, and my two uncles who were both in the Black Watch, were even younger.

I remember all of them as vital, energetic, and amusing men, who had long lives ahead of them but never spoke of their war service.

All of which makes Mr. Stedman’s book such an important contribution to our understanding of what those members of my family and thousands of others went through.

 Pictures; cover from Manchester Pals, embroidered postcard of the Manchester Regiment from the collection of David Harrop, and Mr. Callaghan courtesy of Joe Callaghan

*Manchester Pals, 16th, 17th, 18th,30th, 21st, 22nd & 23rd Battalions of the Manchester Regiment A History of the Two Manchester Brigades, Michael Stedman, 2004

**James Callaghan, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/search/label/James%20Callaghan, William Eric Lunt, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/search/label/Private%20William%20Eric%20Lunt  Private Sidney Bone of the Great War, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/search/label/Private%20Sidney%20Bone%20of%20the%20Great%20War

New memorials for those of the Great War.......... stories behind the book nu 27 William Eric Lunt, and a new Railway Roll of Honour

An occasional series on the stories behind the new book on Manchester and the Great War*

Now I have been thinking of just how we remember those who took part in that conflict which is a century away from us.

This is particularly relevant as we head towards centenary of the Somme and the book on Manchester and the Great War is just about to go down to the publishers.

During the last two and bit years there have been events and programmes as well as documentaries and films devoted to the war and amongst them has been a renewed interest in the war memorials and the Rolls of Honour of the men and women who took part.

Sadly the passage of a century has not been kind to some of them.  A fair few have been neglected, some lost and others stolen for their scrap value.

But as the centenaries roll on many more have been restored and taken pride of place in both public places and in chirches and workplaces.

Recently Manchester City Council chose to name a road in Chorlton after William Eric Lunt who was born on Sandy Lane. He had enlisted on September 5 1915 was wounded and died two days later of his wounds.

It is a small but touching memorial to a young man who had faded into the shadows.

Even more recently a memorial to the men of the London Road Goods Depot was unveiled at Piccadilly Railway Station. The original had been dedicated “TO THE MEMORY OF OUR COMRADES WHO SACRIFICED THEIR LIVES IN THE SERVICE OF THEIR COUNTRY DURING THE EUROPEAN WAR AND AS A TRIBUTE TO THE 580 MEN WHO SERVED.”

It stood on London Road but was lost during the alterations to the railway station in the early 1960s but through the research of Mr Wayne McDonald and Mr Andy Partington and with the support of Virgin Trains and the Railway Heritage Trust a new memorial has been made and now stands on platform 10/11 at Piccadilly Railway Station.

Amongst those present at the unveiling were family members of some of the men who appear on the memorial including two who discovered that they shared a relative on the monument.

For those two women and for many others the passing of a century has done nothing to break the link with those who served.

That link takes many forms.  For some it will have led them to trace their family member through the official records, perhaps even visiting the battlefields and writing their individual stories.  For others it will be in discovering a long forgotten photograph, a collection of letters or even an item of a uniform.

Over the next few weeks I want to explore some of the other memorials ranging from the grand down to the very private.

And some of those monuments will be supplied by David Harrop who today was out on Piccadilly Railway Station and kindly sent these images over.

Location; Manchester

Pictures; memorial on Piccadilly Railway Station, 2016 from the collection of David Harrop

*A new book on Manchester and the Great War http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/A%20new%20book%20on%20Manchester%20and%20the%20Great%20War

A book on the Manchester Pals by Michael Stedman

Now I may be looking in the wrong place, but I can’t find much for the general reader on Manchester and the Great War.

Cover f the book

In the fullness of time I shall plunge into the Ref and start reading the newspapers of the period and pickup on the diaries and letters of those who lived through the conflict but before all of that I wanted a broad picture of our city during the war.

The gap has been partly filled by Manchester Pals by Michael Steadman, which is a detailed account of the formation of the Manchester Pals battalions.*

“Unlike its near neighbour, working-class Salford, Manchester proved able to raise eight Pals battalions. Initially, these battalions were composed of middle-class men who experience before the war years was within the commercial, financial and manufacturing interests which formed the foundations of Edwardian Manchester's life and prosperity.

Manchester was undeniably proud of its pals battalions; that the area was capable of raising.""**

Now I am only a third of the way through but it is my sort of history book drawing on the contemporary accounts of the men who volunteered along with a fine set of photographs.

Embroidered postcard

Here too is a clear description of the city on the eve of the Great War including the grand commercial centre with its towering offices and exchanges, the mean and grim working class areas just a few minutes from that affluence and an account of the growing confrontation between labour on the one side and the powerful people of plenty on the other.

Added to this we get a sense of just how the Pal’s battalions were such a powerful force in drawing young men to the Colours in the first few months of the war.

Mr Callaghan

Men like William Eric Lunt from Chorlton who enlisted in the September of 1914 aged 19 and was posted to the 8th Battalion and my friend Joe’s dad who served in the same unit.

Bit by bit their stories are coming out of the shadows and so I welcome Mr Stedman’s book which is giving a context to their service.

So as I get to the half way mark I shall return with more from the book.

Pictures; cover from Manchester Pals, embroidered postcard of the Manchester Regiment from the collection of David Harrop, and Mr Callaghan courtesy of Joe Callaghan

*Manchester Pals, 16th, 17th, 18th,30th, 21st, 22nd & 23rd Battalions of the Manchester Regiment A History of the Two Manchester Brigades, Michael Stedman, 2004

**Michael Stedman.  http://www.michaelstedman.co.uk/?manchesterpals

***William Eric Lunt a soldier of the Great War, http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/william-eric-lunt-soldier-of-great-war.html