World War1and Shipley
How the ‘war to end all wars’ affected
the people in the West Yorkshire town of
Shipley and its surrounding areas
Click on the links below
to see more pages
This site is dedicated with
thanks to the memory of
ALAN PETFORD, a brilliant
historian and an enthusiastic
and encouraging teacher
The story of one community in time of war
This site was launched in June 2014 to coincide with the
100th anniversary of the shooting of Franz Ferdinand of
Austria and its aim is to tell as much of the story of how the
war affected Shipley and district as possible.
The research centres on reports published each week in the
Shipley Times & Express and while there will obviously a
great deal of attention focused on the men who answered the
call and in many cases made the ultimate sacrifice, we plan to
give equal attention to those left behind
We hope to tell the stories of the women suddenly filling jobs
of departed men as well as running their home; of businesses
trying to thrive in difficult conditions; of conscientious
objectors who would rather face jail than fight; of refugees
seeking help after fleeing the conflict in their homeland.
To reflect how people in Shipley would have experienced the
war, we publish each week a digest of the stories that
appeared in the newspaper exactly 100 years before.
But we need your help
Many families have photographs, letters, diaries or other items that help tell the story of WW1 and we would be
grateful if you would share those with us so the stories can be told online and also preserved for future
generations of researchers.
We’ve already been given access to some wonderful material, like the few
official documents that tell how Pte William Love (above right) was reported as
missing, believed killed. But what the papers don’t tell us, but William’s great
nephew Martin did, was that William’s widow went on several occasions
searching the cemeteries and asylums of Europe in the hope of finding him. “And
when she died we found that she had simply banked her meagre war widows’
pension in case he came back and she had to repay it.”
Cecil Procter was far from his home in 2 Mount Place, Shipley when he died, one
of the casualties when HMS Good Hope was sunk off the coast of Chile. The 30
year old First Class Stoker left a widow and three small daughters (left) and his
granddaughter Sheila Morrell told us: “Life was very hard for my grandmother
and she took in washing and sewing and cleaned to keep her family. she died in
in 1934 in her forties.”
Paul Kampen of Baildon shared a different kind of story with us. His ancestors
were the van Overloop family driven out of their home in Belgium and found
refuge at Laurel Mount in Baildon, just one of many Belgian families forced to flee for their lives.
We already have online details of more than 250 men who fought and many more in the database waiting for
more details but there are many more that we need to track down, so if you have any information at all, please get
in touch.
You can email richard.coomber@virginmedia.com or telephone 01274 584295 or tweet @shipleyww1