Bentham - World War One casualties

Bibby’s History of Bentham says very little about the First World War, its casualties and veterans. There is reference to the memorial tablet in Bentham Grammar School to its former Headmaster Theodore Bailey Hardy. Johnson’s A Century of Bentham has a photograph of James Lamb, an Old Contemptible.

High and Low Bentham like villages and towns up and down the land had a whole generation of young (and some not so young) men serve in the armed forces. The two Benthams likewise experienced a high casualty rate. Hardly a month went by without news of a Bentham man killed in the conflict.

I have compiled a table of World War One casualties from some basic sources in the hope that it might be of some value.

The table shows that men served from all walks of life: farmer’s sons, mill hands, tradesmen as well as the managers and the professionals. Many men joined the Duke of Wellington’s Regiment. Bentham men also served in other regiments including the King’s Own Royal Lancaster. A fair few served with the Canadian Forces. This tells us that there was emigration from Bentham before World War I to what we now call the old commonwealth; the Canadians were men from families still living in or remembered in the village. This is not unusual; from the turn of the century hundreds of thousands emigrated from Britain each year, most often the poor in search of work and better prospects in life.