IN MEMORY OF OUR BAXENDEN LADS

1914 - 1918

& 1939 - 1946

Wm. Turner - November 1994

Introduction
Baxenden War Memorial

CUCKNELL, Alan
GIBSON, Edward
KAVANAGH, Wilfred
TAYLOR, Ernest
WINTERBOTTOM, Richard

Links

Accrington Pals
Visit to Serre
The Somme and Vimy
First World War pages

Designed by  M i c r o L o f t

PTE. 43173 FRED RUSHTON of the Manchester Regiment was killed in action on October 17th 1916 near Mametz during the continuing battles on the Somme front.

Fred lived at 451 Manchester Road, Baxenden, with his parents Mr. & Mrs. William Rushton. He was twenty years of age. Before his enlistment in 1916 he was a spinner at Alliance Mill, Baxenden. He had a younger brother on active service in France. Fred was an active worker for Baxenden Wesleyan Mission, and had many friends in the district.

Fred's body was never found or identified. He is therefore commemorated on the Thiepval Memorial to the Missing on the Somme. The Memorial is some four miles north east of the small town of Albert. It stands on a rise overlooking the battlefields. It is in the form of a triumphant arch, and is built of brick with limestone facings. (In the 1980's much of the brickwork in the archways, which are a feature of the Memorial, was replaced by special bricks made in Accrington.)

On the stone panels are inscribed the names of over 73,000 men who died on the Somme battlefields between July 1915 and March 1918 and have no known grave. Fred's name is one of 1,877 men of the Manchester Regiment so commemorated.