Our Flanders Adventure IV: Loos Memorial

Harry Dickman, Lancashire Fusiliers.

Our next stop on our Flanders journey was Loos Memorial (Dud Corner) in France, where the deaths of two of my great-uncles are commemorated. Harry and Herbert Dickman both volunteered to serve in 1915, but were killed within a few weeks of each other in 1916. Their bodies were never found.

This was a very moving moment for me as I have wanted to visit their memorials and pay my respects for a long time.

I felt sad when my visit was over, but the Loos Memorial seems a very fitting last resting place for my relatives as they were both Lancashire miners.

Harry Dickman, Loos Memorial panel, Lancs Fusiliers.

Dud Corner is sited in a mining area, and immense coal spoil heaps loom large on the horizon. But you can hear the birds singing, and the cemetery is bright with flowers.

Loos Memorial

Herbert Dickman, Loos Memorial panel, Royal Fusiliers.

Original modern photos © Sue Wilkes.

Photo of Harry Dickman in uniform published by kind permission of Mandy Taylor (to whom copyright is reserved). I am very grateful indeed to Mandy for letting me include this lovely photo of our ancestor. 

 

Did Your Ancestor Work in Lancashire?

In my latest feature for Your Family History magazine (issue 35), I give tips for exploring occupational sources for Tracing Your Lancashire Ancestors.

The county was the cradle of the industrial revolution. Faster roads, the pioneers of the canal system, and the new-fangled railways all helped to make the county the 'workhouse of the world'. Men, women and children worked in a huge variety of industries. 

The county was most famous for its cotton and coal, but it was home to other industries such as glass, transport, engineering and ship-building.   Many Lancashire products were on show at the Great Exhibition of 1851.   

 

Cotton goods were still Britain’s largest export at the turn of the twentieth century. The Manchester Ship Canal, which opened in 1894, had rejuvenated Lancashire manufacturing after a trade slump.  But two world wars, and foreign competition, led to an inexorable decline in the fortunes of Lancashire’s most famous industries: one by one, cotton mills and coal mines closed their gates for good.  

If your ancestor worked in Lancashire, then try searching local record office catalogues for accident registers, apprenticeship records, cash books, friendly society records, sick club records, staff records, pensions, wage books, trade union records etc., which are all useful sources for genealogy.

Images from author's collection:

Steam manufactory, Bolton, Lancashire Illustrated, 1832. Rothwell, Hick & Co.’s works made steam engines and industrial machinery. Horse power was still important even during  the age of steam;  horses were used to haul locomotives round the factory. 

Wigan pit brow lassies. Cassell’s Illustrated History of England Vol. IX, (Cassell, Petter and Galpin, c.1874).

Shipment of Lancashire locomotives and rolling stock at Manchester Docks, Lancashire Industrial & Commercial, 1935.

Bridgewater Foundry, Patricroft, founded by James Nasmyth. Pictorial History of the County of Lancashire, 1844.