James Leonard Cumberlidge
Killed in Action 31st August 1918
James' Story
He was born in October 1893 in Holmes Chapel, the son of James Cumberlidge a farm labourer and his wife Mary. He was living in Holmes Chapel in 1901 but by 1911 he had moved and was the ‘Hall Boy’ at the house of W. L. Gladstone of Broad Green, Liverpool. He may have moved from there because he enlisted at Clitheroe in Lancashire.
James Leonard appears to have been recorded in error twice on the Church Roll of Honour, once as James L. Cumberlidge and once as Leonard Cumberlidge.
Leonard Cumberlidge joined the 4th East Lancashire Regiment in December 1914, before enlisting into the Machine Gun Corps with Nr 3239.
The Parish Magazine reports that in August to October 1916 he was in hospital due to sickness. He was killed in action on 31st August 1918 in France and Flanders aged 25.
He has no known grave but is commemorated on Panel 10 Vis-en-Artois Memorial.
Home of the Cumberlidge Family
David Elks
Killed in Action 1st November 1918
David's Story
David Elks was born in May 1883 the son of Samuel and Ann in Pendlebury, Lancashire. We know that in 1891 he was living at 17 Park Street, Pendleton aged 7 and at school. In 1901 he was still in Pendleton and living at 12 Ernest Street. He was aged 17 and a worker at Plaiting Down Paper Mill. By 1911 he had moved as a boarder to the house of Charles M Pollitt, 102 Broughton Rd, Pendleton, aged 27. His job was now described as a wallpaper stainer.
In November 1911 he married Edith Gorton at St Barnabas Church, Pendleton and by the outbreak of war he had two children Christina and Edith.
Shortly after this he moved to Holmes Chapel and he was living at Church View. The move related to the opening of the wallpaper works on Macclesfield Road which attracted a number of people from the Pendleton area.
He was called up in 1917 and enlisted at Middlewich as a Private into the 2/7th Battalion of the Royal Warwickshire Regiment Nr 29630. The Parish Magazine records his enlistment and in October 1918 that he was in hospital suffering from gas poisoning. This had occurred during the battles in France and Flanders.
He was killed in action in France on 1st November 1918. He was finally buried in Valenciennes Communal Cemetery (Plot 3 Row D Grave 22) having been removed from Artres British Cemetery on 6th November 1920.
This cemetery, on the road from Artres to Preseau, contained the graves of 32 soldiers of the 61st (South Midland) Division who fell on the 1st November 1918, one of whom was David Elks.
He received the Victory Medal and the British War Medal.
David Elk's Family
'They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.'
Extract from 'For the Fallen' by Laurence Binyon