Earlestown War Memorial

Too wet to Blip at lunchtime. So a walk round Earlestown in the evening. I thought this memorial was , like most, initially for the great war. However the original memorial is to the South Africa (Boer) war and was erected in 1904.

On Saturday afternoon, at Earlestown, Lord Newton unveiled a memorial of the South African war, which has been erected outside the Town Hall in honour of fifty men of Newton-in-Makerfield who volunteered for service in that historic struggle. The cost of the monument, about £360, is defrayed out of the local fund started in 1899 for the relief of necessitous cases arising out of such service. Much of the money was contributed by working men, and happily out of £991 raised it was found necessary to distribute only £215 in assistance. Of the remainder it is intended to devote £200 to the formation of a nucleus for the provision of a cottage hospital. The memorial, designed by Messrs. Dring and Manchester, of Earlestown, and carried out by Messrs. Scott and Prescott, of St. Helens, consists of the figure of a Yeoman carved in white marble and fixed in an ornamentally designed base of various granites. On the panels of the pedestal are inscribed the names of all the local Volunteers who went out, chief place being given to the record of those who lost their lives on duty. These were Lieutenant Hugh Stewart McCorquodale, of Thorneycroft’s Horse, and Sergeants S. Swann and A. Oubridge, and Troopers R. Collings and W. A. Frost, of the Lancashire Hussars. Thirty-two local men of the Hussars joined the Imperial Yeomanry, and the fifty were made up by ten members of the 1st V.B. South Lancashire Regiment, one of the 6th V.B. the King’s (Liverpool) Regiment and seven belonging to other corps.