Pudsey Remembers: Lost and Found War Memorials – Part 5

Pudsey Parish Church

If the Cenotaph is Pudsey’s public face of remembrance, then Pudsey Parish Church, St Lawrence and St Paul, is one of its most personal.


Inside the church is a striking marble First World War memorial with 54 names dedicated to the churchmen of this parish who gave their lives in the Great War, 1914–1918.
It is a beautiful and serious piece, framed by coloured marble columns and carved detail, with the names of the dead set either side of a central inscription. But that is only part of the story.

 

Nearby are individual memorials to men including Captain James Eric Appleyard, 2nd Lt Major Booth, 2nd Lt George Latimer Robbins, Sergeant Joseph Birks Mann, Corporal Frederick William Jones, and even the altar rail itself became an act of remembrance.


That is what makes this place special. It is not just one memorial, but a cluster of them – public remembrance, private grief and family love all gathered in one church.

The church carries the day-to-day responsibility for these memorials. The main risks are the usual ones for historic interiors: wear, accidental damage, cracking and loss to the stonework and fading legibility, it is important that these are recorded for posterity. And in this case that matters, because every plaque adds another layer to our story.

Two names particularly stand out.

Second Lieutenant Thomas Huggan is remembered in a very moving way. His mother, Mercy Elizabeth Huggan, dedicated the altar rail in his memory. The inscription records Thomas as an RFC officer, killed on pilot training in England on 24 July 1917, aged just 18 years, after service over the German lines.

11 year old Thoams Huggan (bottom left) with his father Joseph (centre) and his mother (right) Mercy Elizabeth Huggan, riding the first tram into Pudsey

It is a reminder that remembrance was not only carved into formal civic memorials. Sometimes it was worked into the fabric of worship itself by families determined that a son should not be forgotten.


 

Then there is Gunner Harold Marsh, named on the large parish memorial. He was only 16 years old. That fact hits hard. We often talk about “the fallen” in big round numbers, but here is the reality in black and white: a boy, barely old enough to have begun adult life, dying of TB in a Leeds Hospital, his duty barely started.


Both these boys are buried, alongside their families in Pudsey Cemetery. A dignity that most of our young men were denied in death during conflict.

That, really, is why the Parish Church memorial matters. It records sacrifice, yes – but also the human response to loss. The big memorial speaks for the parish. The side memorials and altar rail speak for the families.

Next time: Pudsey’s Nonconformist memorials.

Sources / thanks: Pudsey Parish Church memorial photographs and site visits, my ongoing memorial research, and thanks to the late Margaret Ford of Pudsey & District Civic Society, who diligently transcribed our memorials.

Enjoyed the blog? Have an interesting Church or Potts clock tale of your own? please leave some feedback in the comments. Wait - there's more! Follow for future blogs on a wide range of local interest topics.

All views my own unless specifically quoted, or clearly promoted on behalf of an organisation, group or individual. To avoid stepping on copyright toes I generate and edit my own images, credit given where others work is used.

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