PRIVATE JOHN JAMES HARGREAVES
MANCHESTER REGIMENT
10TH NOVEMBER 1917 AGE 36
BURIED: CEMENT HOUSE CEMETERY, LANGEMARK, BELGIUM
This simple statement will apply to all those bereaved by the war and you wouldn't have to have been an industrialist, a cabinet minister or poet for it to be true.
John Hargeaves was a cotton weaver from Bacup in Lancashire. A married man, he served with the 12th Battalion the Manchester Regiment and was killed in action on 10 November 1917 during the Second Battle of Passchendaele.
Among the many who "have lost much" were the children of Bacup. Ten years after the end of the war, the Bacup war memorial was unveiled in the pouring rain, the local paper commenting that:
"The most touching part of the whole ceremony was said to be the presence of children of men killed in the war and wearing their father's medals. Shivering in the rain and trying to keep back the tears which silently flowed, and grasping lovingly the posies 'In loving memory of Daddy".
Listed among the names of the children was Cyril Hargreaves.