Farrar Iredale (1886-1917)

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This page is part of a project by David Verguson to research the lives of those who appear on war memorials and rolls of honour in the Lindley area.

Biography

Farrar Iredale was born on 3 September 1886 at Ing Top, Longwood, the son of Sarah and Thomas Iredale. Tom and Sarah both worked as weavers and very unusually for a married woman, Sarah gave her occupation in the 1891 census at a time when married women rarely worked. Tom's sister Sarah, lived with them and she too worked as a weaver.

Farrar had attended Goitfield School, now Longwood Infants, but went on to attend Longwood Grammar School and had still not started work in 1891 at the age of fourteen. Tom was probably old enough to fend for himself until his mother, father or aunt got home from the mill. A family of three adult weavers must have been very prosperous at the turn of the 19th century.

The family lived on Longwood Gate, in a house that seems to have been owned by the Longwood Industrial Society, for the late 1890s until at least the 1920s. Number 93 had only four rooms so it may have been a bit of a squeeze with Tom's sister living with them, but Farrar was their only child.[1]

By 1911 Farrar had left school and was working as a warehouseman but by the time he enlisted on 17 May 1916 (probably after being called-up) he was working as a clerk in the Public Health Department, an occupation that probably better suited his level of education.

Farrar served in the 23rd and 8th Battalions of the Northumberland Fusiliers. He was wounded in the neck by shrapnel at Wytschaete, Belgium on the 11 June 1917 and died twelve days later at the 3rd Canadian General Hospital, Boulogne. He cannot have been at the Front for more than a few months. Farrar is buried at the Boulogne Easter Cemetery.

In Huddersfield, Farrar is remembered on the Town Hall memorial to corporation employees, on the memorial in Salendine Nook Baptist Church and on the family gravestone that records the deaths of his father in 1919 and his mother in 1935.

Huddersfield's Roll of Honour: 1914-1922

The following extract is from Huddersfield's Roll of Honour: 1914-1922 (2014) by J. Margaret Stansfield:

IREDALE, FARRAR. Private. No 46046. 8th Battalion Northumberland Fusiliers. Born Ing Top, Longwood, 3.9.1886. Son of Thomas and Sarah Iredale, 100 Prospect Road, Longwood. Educated Goitfield and Longwood Grammar School. Attended Salendine Nook Baptist Church. Employed as a clerk in the Public Health Department, Huddersfield. Single. Enlisted 17.5.1916. Wounded at Wytschaete, Belgium, on 11.6.1917. Died of a haemorrhage, caused by a shrapnel wound in the jugular vein, at the 3rd Canadian General Hospital, Boulogne, 23.6.1917, aged 30 years. Buried. BOULOGNE EASTERN CEMETERY. Grave location:- Plot 4, Row A, Grave 14.
ROH:- Salendine Nook Baptist Church; Huddersfield Corporation Roll; commemorated in Salendine Nook Baptist Chapel yard, D430.

Commonwealth War Graves Commission

Links

Locations

  1. The family later moved to 100 Prospect Road, Longwood.