George Henry VENN

100 Years On Guard

A Grenadier Guard in full battle dress and mourning pose has stood in a leafy and flower-filled Memorial Garden, keeping guard over the town of Clitheroe, for almost a century. Unveiled on 18th August 1923 by the Mayor of Clitheroe, Alderman John Thomas Whipp, the sculpture was the work of Frederick Louis Roslyn R.B.S. of London, who attended the unveiling. Two identical statues stand at Slaidburn and Denholme and are amongst the many memorials which Roslyn created in the British Isles plus one as far afield as Jamaica. The Scots granite plinth was designed by Mr. A. E. Blezard, Clitheroe Town Council’s surveyor, who also oversaw the construction of the cenotaph and the memorial garden. The finance for the cenotaph at Clitheroe Castle was sourced from part of the public donations which the citizens of Clitheroe had raised for the purchase of the castle, and the six point four hectare grounds surrounding it, from the Duke of Buccleuch as a war memorial for the princely sum of £9,500. His Lordship had asked for more but reduced the sum when told that the purchase was for a war memorial. More cash was accrued after this time to pay for making the grounds into a public park.

The money was collected in many ways – millworkers had one penny (1/2 p) stopped from their wages each week; school children sold bunches of wildflowers for a penny; mill owners provided multiples of tens of pounds at different times and there were fayres, bazaars, dances and auctions held to swell the funds. On the momentous day, almost 1,000 servicemen, – some horribly wounded or disfigured – lined the street through the town from the mayor’s parlour in Church Street to the entrance to the castle at the aptly named Castle Gate. The mayoral party, made up of the Mayor and Mayoress, Aldermen, Corporation councillors, magistrates, Town Clerk, Sergeant of the Mace and halberdiers, and members of the War Memorial Committee made their slow and dignified way between these men who grieved for their lost companions until they reached the locked gates of the castle grounds.

The little market town’s losses had been great – a goodly portion of the next generation gone for ever. Hardly a family or a street had been spared, with drawn curtains at many of the cottages in the little back-to-back houses in the Salford area, including the homes of the three Fielding brothers and the three McHales, – all of Harrop Street. Mrs. Annabella Park of High Street, Low Moor lost three of her sons, – one of whom enlisted from Canada to fight for the “mother-country”, one whilst a prisoner of war and one, so inhumanely treated whilst a prisoner of war, that he came home terminally ill and took his own life. Less than a hundred yards away, the aging Alston parents were left with only one son and a daughter from their family of five. The Boothman family of Pimlico, lost two sons, Frank and Bertram, both of whom worked in the offices of the local authority; the two Durham brothers, Joseph and Thomas from Brownlow Street, both unskilled workers. Many were the names and tragic stories of these “lost boys”; the very fabric of the township’s life was changed by these blows – the churches and Sunday schools, the football teams, cricket teams, industries and businesses. The lives of the parents, wives and children of all these brave men and boys had been changed forever; and so the mood was sombre as they gathered on this day of remembrance.

Here at the gates were waiting the Subscribers’ Committee, who had handled the weekly savings and the purchase of the castle, headed by Alderman Tom Garnett J.P. Whilst handing to the mayor the deeds to the castle and a key with which to open the gates, he voiced the hope that “the memory of the great dead would remain treasured and cherished in their hometown until time shall be lost in eternity.”

In the name of all Clitheronians, Mayor Whipp accepted these tokens of custody and said that “the Castle would stand as a perpetual reminder of the great deliverance wrought for our land by those who fought in the Great War. The Corporation would carefully guard the Castle and grounds as a sacred trust and would hand it on as a precious heritage to future generations.”

So began the council stewardship of the splendid and unique war memorial which the castle had become. Once more the mayoral party, followed by the servicemen and onlookers, made their slow, reverential way up the castle drive to the Garden of Remembrance where-in the Memorial, covered by the Union Jack, stood. Relatives of the fallen had been granted two tickets per family as entrance to this garden; other onlookers had to squeeze into every other available nook and cranny. A solemn unveiling by Mayor Whipp was followed by the Last Post, a two-minute silence and Reveille but then, instead of laying the first, Clitheroe citizens wreath himself, the mayor handed it to Mr. Thomas Snape and said, “Please, you have more right to lay this wreath than I.” Mr. Snape walked forward and took the beautiful arch of white lilies grown in the castle greenhouses which had the words “In Remembrance” picked out in purple flowers and laid it at the foot of the memorial. He, who had lost four sons and a son-in-law in the vicious five-year fight for peace, did indeed deserve this honour. The service continued with prayers, choir anthems, readings and hymns; culminating with the hymn “Abide with Me” and the National Anthem. Everyone was now allowed to place their own tributes at the foot of the Guard on his lofty, granite plinth. By the evening of that day over 400 floral tributes formed a beautiful token of love, gratitude and remembrance. Wreaths, anchors, crosses and cushions – had been laid in memory of the 334 men of the town who went away singing never to return.

Researched by Shirley Penman. August, 2023