Albert RALPH

07 December 1917

TRIBUTE TO A SETTLE HERO – Writing in the current issue of the Settle Parish Church Magazine the Vicar states:– “Another young life from our parish has been laid down at the war. Albert Ralph has died of wounds received in the head. Twice before he had been wounded. The third time he succumbed. Formerly a scholar in our Sunday school, he has left behind him a name of which all to whom he belonged may be justly proud. He was confirmed in the year 1908. On referring to my register of confirmation candidates I find that he was not once absent from the preparation class, and after his confirmation he was regularly at the Holy Communion until he left home for farm service The testimony borne by his employers is quite in keeping with his record at home. A finer boy, we are told, was never in their house. It fills us with sadness to think that lives such as his have to be sacrificed for our country’s honour, but even our sadness is not without a note of triumph that there have been raised among us young men so worthy to die in so great a cause. Our deep sympathy with his parent and other relatives.”

14 December 1917

SETTLE

PTE. ALBERT RALPH DIES OF WOUNDS

Mr. Alfred Ralph, of 9, Lower Croft Street, Settle, has received official intimation that his son, Private Albert Ralph, of the West Riding Regiment, has died of wounds at the Le Treport Hospital, France. The deceased soldier had been twice previously wounded. He joined up just two years ago and had been in France 15 months. Prior to the war he worked as farm servant for Mr. Thomas Davidson, at Selside, Horton-in-Ribblesdale, and was much thought of by his employer. He was 23 years of age.

04 January 1918

SETTLE’S FALLEN HEROES

Memorial Service at the Parish Church

A memorial service for the Settle soldiers who have fallen in the war was held at the Parish Church last Sunday afternoon. There was a large congregation, and the service was conducted by Rev. W. E. Linney (vicar). The hymns ‘God of the living in Whose eyes,’ ‘Jesus lives,’ ‘On the resurrection morn,’ and ‘ O God our help in aged past’ were sung, and the ‘Last Post’ was sounded at the close of the service by two of the local Cadets. The organist (Mr. F. Lord) also played appropriate music as the congregation assembled and left the church.

The Vicar, in the course of his sermon, said they were met to remember the Settle soldiers, men, and boys – some indeed little more than boys – who had laid down their lives for the country at the war, whether during the year which was just drawing to a close or in the earlier stages of the conflict. When he asked them to remember those heroes that day, he knew that he was asking them to do what they were always doing. They were their own dear ones united to many of them by ties of blood – husbands, fathers, brothers, sons, as well as friends. How could they forget them? Were they not reminded of them day by day by the gaps in their home circles, which could never again be filled by them? They all desired in their hearts that God would bless and keep them, and give them peace. and happiness. The Vicar then read the following list of the Settle men who had laid down their lives:– John Edward Bell, Geo. S. Belles, Fredk. Baldwin, John Barrett, Robert Bateson, William Bradley, Frank Bulcock, George R. Bullock, Herbert Clark, John Cokell, Edward Ellershaw, Jas. Ewart, Wm. Ewart, Fredk. Frost, Harold Goss, Alfred Gower, Joseph Lord, John Morphet, John Packard, Chas. Peachey, Thomas Howarth Preston, Albert Ralph, Thos. Stackhouse, George Edward Turner, Derwent Turnbull, Wm. Troughton, Harry Walton, John Edward Wilson, Ernest Wooff, and Robert Wooff. Proceeding, the Vicar said they had a responsibility with regard to those men. They owed them a debt, and he trusted and believed that they were wishful to do all that they could to repay it. “ Our lives are being saved by their death. If we have any future before us on the earth it is because they gave up their futures to secure it. Their right to survive was as good as our own. Many of them would have been of far more use in the world than we can hope to be. The future stands to be only poorer for our surviving in their stead. We are debtors to them for all they have given us. To the future think of all it has lost in them.” How were they going to pay the debt, and in paying it to honour their heroic dead? Surely there could be but one answer – to live to give effect to their ideals. When they were asked what those ideals were, they might be well put in the words of Bishop Walshaw How’s hymn written for the diamond jubilee of Queen Victoria, “To make the world a better world for man’s brief earthly dwelling.” If Prussian militarism should gain the ascendancy the world would be scarcely a fit place to live in. What they wanted was the triumph of right and liberty. That was the task they had begun, and many of them, fired by the enthusiasm of a noble cause, literally went singing to their death. The old life which had no loftier aim than a high standard of material comfort had been felt to be unsatisfactory. To ardent youth the higher spirit of self-sacrifice, which was the spirit of Christ, beckoned onward with irresistible attractiveness, and they followed the gleam. They had yet to complete the great task to which they dedicated themselves. That was the way they could honour the memory of their fallen heroes, and with confidence that they had not died in vain.

A collection taken on behalf of the Red Cross Society realised £5 15s.