Prescot Roll of Honour

Service Details

The battalion was formed at Seaforth, Liverpool in October 1914 as part of Kitchener's New Armies. After initial training, the battalion moved to France in February 1915. James Mawdsley was sent to France as part of a wave of reinforcements in September 1915.

Early in January 1916, the battalion was informed that they were to be retrained and re-designated as a Pioneer Battalion. As such, they would have been taken out of front line service and employed in trench and road construction, often consolidating captured trenches immediately behind the front line assault troops.

On 5th January, they relieved the 4th Battalion, South Lancashire Regiment, as Pioneer Battalion to the 4th Division and for the remainder of the month they stayed in Voormezeele in Flanders.

On 4th March, they moved to Poperinghe, but the conditions were dreadful, with men often having to be pulled from trenches by rope, communications trenches disappeared under water, dug-outs constantly flooded, etc.

These trenches had been recaptured from the Germans, and dead bodies of both British and German soldiers were intermingled all over. Tons of discarded equipment and ammunition was collected in over the next few days.

The battalion then spent some three or four months of relatively uneventful duty in and around the front-line trenches in the area of Kemmel, Locre and Meteren before moving to the Somme in support of the forthcoming battle.

To cover the remainder of 1916 briefly, the battalion was involved in the Battle of Bazentin Ridge from 14th to 17th July, then moved on to Delville Wood as part of the action there from mid-July to 3rd September, then involvement in the battles of Guillemont and Ancre before the Somme campaign died out in November 1916.

As 1917 wore on, the battalion were involved in actions around the Hindenberg Line, being withdrawn from the front line on the night of 11th/12th May. Their duties now were to provide working parties for the troops in the line. They marched to rest billets in Simencourt, then on the 18th to fresh billets at Beaufort. Here they underwent training until the 31st May when they moved to Lattre St. Quentin. After just a few days, however, they once again moved on 2nd June to the reserve line (known as the Brown Line) then onwards to the front line in order to carry out a relief.
The battalion diary records no specific actions on 3rd June 1917, the day on which Private Mawdsley died. It is likely that he simply fell victim to the standard daily grind of trench warfare, involving shelling, sniping, mortars, etc. His body was recovered and he now rests in Faubourg D'Amiens Cemetery in Arras. As this is a concentration cemetery, it is probable that Private Mawdsley was buried close to where he fell and was then reburied as part of the battlefield clearance and concentration of the early 1920's.

Private Mawdsley's Medal Index Card. His date of entry to France of 26th September 1915 qualified him for the 1914-1915 Star in addition to the British War Medal and Victory Medal.

Private Mawdsley's grave at Faubourg D'Amiens. The personal inscription says

'GONE BUT NOT FORGOTTEN BY ALL AT HOME'