Wilbraham Lomax Blears
Wilbraham Lomax Blears succumbed to the effects of Gas Shell poisoning and Broncho Pneumonia passing away on Monday 13th May 1918 at Royd Hall Military Hospital, Lindley, a suburb of Huddersfield in Yorkshire. The funeral with full military honours took place a few days later, his body interred in Swinton Unitarian Church Chapel Yard, Swinton Hall Road, Swinton. A Commonwealth War Graves Commission headstone commemorated Wilbraham’s grave. The church was demolished in 1985 his name was subsequently added on a memorial screen wall dedicated to military casualties of WWI in Southern Cemetery, Manchester.
The second son of Edward Blears and Elizabeth Lomax Wilbraham was born in 1895 at the family home on Chorley Road opposite the old Swinton market place. Employed by the Eccles Co-Operative Society he worked in the grocery section of the Swinton branch located on Worsley Road.
94397 Pte. Blears enlisted in the Manchester Regiment February 1916. Once basic training was completed he left for Egypt in the November of that year. After a comparatively short time he was dispatched to France and transferred to The King’s Liverpool Regiment. Early 1917 he was struck down by the debilitating disease Trench Fever and spent a period of rehabilitation in hospital firstly in Dundee and later Blackpool. Blears’ elder brother James Edward of the 19th Lancashire Fusiliers too endured a bout of the disease; he survived the war and returned home to Swinton.
Trench Fever was first reported in the trenches of the Western Front in December 1914. Upwards of a third of all British troops reporting bad health had developed the disease. Transmitted by body lice symptoms consisted of sudden high fever, severe headache, inflamed eyes and persistent pain in the legs, symptoms similar to those of Typhoid and Influenza. The modern day equivalent of the condition is Lymes disease.
Once recuperated Wilbraham rejoined his battalion fighting on the front line in France for a further six months before being invalided back home towards the end of 1917 suffering from gas poisoning. His death came as a great shock to his parents who were led to believe his condition had been improving.
Acknowledgement and thanks to Salford War Memorials Project for providing the death certificate information, Salford Local History library for access to the burial records of Swinton Unitarian Church and copies of the Eccles Journal.
Wilbraham Lomax Blears has since been re-interred in Swinton Cemetery along with more than 300 bodies exhumed from Swinton Unitarian Church Burial Ground to make way for the building of a new ASDA supermarket. His name has now been removed from the memorial wall in Southern Cemetery as a Commonwealth War Graves Commission headstone is now in place on the resting place in Swinton Cemetery.
© Susan Tydd. 2012
Please do not reproduce without permission
Wilbraham Lomax Blears succumbed to the effects of Gas Shell poisoning and Broncho Pneumonia passing away on Monday 13th May 1918 at Royd Hall Military Hospital, Lindley, a suburb of Huddersfield in Yorkshire. The funeral with full military honours took place a few days later, his body interred in Swinton Unitarian Church Chapel Yard, Swinton Hall Road, Swinton. A Commonwealth War Graves Commission headstone commemorated Wilbraham’s grave. The church was demolished in 1985 his name was subsequently added on a memorial screen wall dedicated to military casualties of WWI in Southern Cemetery, Manchester.
The second son of Edward Blears and Elizabeth Lomax Wilbraham was born in 1895 at the family home on Chorley Road opposite the old Swinton market place. Employed by the Eccles Co-Operative Society he worked in the grocery section of the Swinton branch located on Worsley Road.
94397 Pte. Blears enlisted in the Manchester Regiment February 1916. Once basic training was completed he left for Egypt in the November of that year. After a comparatively short time he was dispatched to France and transferred to The King’s Liverpool Regiment. Early 1917 he was struck down by the debilitating disease Trench Fever and spent a period of rehabilitation in hospital firstly in Dundee and later Blackpool. Blears’ elder brother James Edward of the 19th Lancashire Fusiliers too endured a bout of the disease; he survived the war and returned home to Swinton.
Trench Fever was first reported in the trenches of the Western Front in December 1914. Upwards of a third of all British troops reporting bad health had developed the disease. Transmitted by body lice symptoms consisted of sudden high fever, severe headache, inflamed eyes and persistent pain in the legs, symptoms similar to those of Typhoid and Influenza. The modern day equivalent of the condition is Lymes disease.
Once recuperated Wilbraham rejoined his battalion fighting on the front line in France for a further six months before being invalided back home towards the end of 1917 suffering from gas poisoning. His death came as a great shock to his parents who were led to believe his condition had been improving.
Acknowledgement and thanks to Salford War Memorials Project for providing the death certificate information, Salford Local History library for access to the burial records of Swinton Unitarian Church and copies of the Eccles Journal.
Wilbraham Lomax Blears has since been re-interred in Swinton Cemetery along with more than 300 bodies exhumed from Swinton Unitarian Church Burial Ground to make way for the building of a new ASDA supermarket. His name has now been removed from the memorial wall in Southern Cemetery as a Commonwealth War Graves Commission headstone is now in place on the resting place in Swinton Cemetery.
© Susan Tydd. 2012
Please do not reproduce without permission