Michael Lydon

Name: Michael Lydon
Rank: Private
Unit/Regiment: 2nd Battalion, Alexandra, Princess of Wales’s Own (Yorkshire Regiment)
Service Number: 48517
Date of Death: 1 September 1918
Cemetery: Vis en Artois British Cemetery, Haucourt, Pas de Calais, France

Michael Lydon was the only son of Irish-born Dominic Lydon and his wife Annie (née Kenny), who was a native of Charlestown, County Mayo.¹ The couple married at St Mary’s RC Church, Batley on 30 August 1887.² Their eldest child, daughter Eliza Jane, was born that October.

Another daughter, Mary, followed in January 1890, but she survived for only three weeks and was buried in a public grave in Batley cemetery on 15 February 1890. At this time the family address was Spring Gardens, Batley.³

The 1891 census records the family as now living at Yard 2, East Street, with Dominic working as a mason’s labourer and Annie as a rag sorter.

Michael was the couple’s third, and final child, born in Batley on 15 December 1891 and baptised at St Mary’s the following month.⁴ On 5 September 1894, before Michael reached the age of three, his father died.⁵ He was buried in Batley cemetery two days later. Then, on 5 August 1898, Eliza also died.⁶ She was buried in the same grave as her father.

This left Annie, who never remarried, to bring up her only surviving child – though she may have had family help. This is evidenced in the 1901 and 1911 censuses, when her mother Jane is recorded in the family’s East Street home. In 1901 Annie’s brother Patrick is also living there.

The death of Dominic would have had a significant impact on the family income. Annie is recorded working as a rag picker in both the 1901 and 1911 censuses. In the earlier years her mother may have facilitated this by looking after Michael as a child, whilst Annie was at work.

Annie also took in boarders to supplement the family income, with both the 1901 and 1911 census showing two in the household. It may be that her brother Patrick also contributed towards the household income whilst he lived there.

And in 1911 things would have been easier financially because by now Michael is recorded as working in a woollen mill as a mill hand piecrer [sic]. I suspect this should read piecer/piecener, a job undertaken by several St Mary’s parishioners.

A Dictionary of Occupational Terms describes it as follows:

Piecer, piecener; mule piecer, spinner’s piecer, spinning piecer, spinning mule piecer, spinning mill piecer; pieces, or joins together, by hand, threads broken in spinning; keeps mule clear of waste; sometimes adjusts temper weights, collects full cops of yarn from spindles, and assists spinner q.v. generally.⁷

More details about this occupation can be found here.

However, Michael moved on from mill work. Prior to joining the Army he was employed by the Great Northern Railway Company as a goods porter at Batley railway station.⁸

It is hard to imagine now, but in Michael’s time Batley Railway Station did not focus solely on passenger travel. It was also a busy goods station, servicing the town’s textile industry. It would be a vital transport hub bringing in vast quantities of rags to town, the raw material for the shoddy industry. It would also be the main hub for exporting the finished cloths. Whilst Michael was a goods porter, wartime trade in the cloth industry was booming, with materials manufactured to supply the demands of military authorities from blankets to puttees and uniforms. Vast quantities of old, soiled uniforms poured into the town too for picking over and cleaning or reusing in the shoddy industry.

Michael’s job would encompass not only the textile industry, but the transport of other goods into and out of the town too. His work would have involved a variety of tasks, including loading and unloading goods trucks, sweeping the goods yards, cleaning wagons, carrying messages and attaching and detaching goods labels.⁹

But as the War dragged on, and the early enthusiasm to volunteer for military service waned, conscription was brought in, with the passing of the Military Service Act in January 1916. This imposed conscription on all single men aged between 18 (as of 15 August 1915) and not yet 41 by 2 March 1916, but exempted the medically unfit, clergymen, teachers and certain classes of industrial worker. A second Act passed in May 1916 extended conscription to married men and reduced the age to 18. Together they were known as the Military Service Acts, 1916.

Then, in 1918 during the last months of the war, the Military Service (No. 2) Act raised the age limit to 51. But by then Michael was already preparing to go overseas.

He enlisted and joined his new regiment, Alexandra, Princess of Wales’s Own (Yorkshire Regiment), probably better known today as the Green Howards, in December 1917. However, in February 1918 whilst serving with the 4th Reserve Battalion at Sutton on Hull, he went Absent Without Leave for which he appeared before the Batley magistrates and was remanded to await an escort. In June 1918 he went over to France. From surviving records it appears he may possibly have initially served overseas with the 1/5th Yorkshire Regiment,¹⁰ transferring to the 2nd Battalion when the former was reduced to cadre strength in mid-July 1918.

It was whilst serving as a Private with the 2nd Battalion that Michael was killed in action on 1 September 1918 – only 11 days after writing an informal will leaving everything to his mother.

The day before his death, the Battalion had captured the village of Hamblain-les-Prés, about eight miles east of Arras with, according to the Unit War Diary, slight opposition and low casualties.¹¹

The diary entry for the day of Michael’s death is very low key. The Battalion spent the day maintaining and consolidating captured positions. The diarist recorded that enemy artillery was very quiet and there was nothing of importance to report. The enemy dammed the Trinques River [sic], flooding no-man’s land.¹² He does not list any casualty details for the day, although CWGC records that Michael was one of three soldiers from the Battalion to die on 1 September. One was buried in the same original cemetery as Michael, and like Michael was moved after the war.¹³ More of that later.

Annie was officially notified of Michael’s death at her home at 12 East Street. This included via letters from an officer and a private who served with him. The latter, a pal of Michael’s, wrote:

I am sorry to inform you that your son was killed on Sunday, September 1st, by the bursting of a shell, and buried ‘Somewhere in France.’ I wish to express my sympathy and also that of the platoon, by whom he was so well liked.¹⁴

Michael was originally laid to rest at Bois-Du-Sart British Cemetery, Pelves. This small burial ground was situated at the North-Western angle of the Bois-du-Sart, a wood. It contained the graves of ten soldiers and airmen from the United Kingdom (including one from the 2nd West Yorkshire’s who died the same day as Michael), and nine solders from Canada, who fell in August and September 1918.¹⁵ After the War their bodies were exhumed and reburied at Vis-en-Artois British Cemetery, Haucourt.

In addition to St Mary’s War Memorial, Michael is also remembered on Batley War Memorial. However, although being an employee of the Great Northern Railway Company before undertaking military service, he is not commemorated on their War Memorial at King’s Cross. Neither does he feature on National Railway Museum’s Fallen Railwaymen Database.

Michael was awarded the Victory Medal and British War Medal.

Michael’s mother, Annie, was awarded a dependent’s pension following her son’s death. In her latter years she moved to Mapplewell near Barnsley, and died aged 92 in 1952. She was brought back to Batley for burial.

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Footnotes:
1. Surname variants include Kenney and Kinnie. Renney and Kelly also feature as versions used in official documents.
2. Batley News, 6 August 1887.
3. Batley Cemetery burial records.
4. Parish register.
5. Batley News, 7 September 1894.
6. Batley News, 12 August 1898.
7. A Dictionary of Occupational Terms: Ministry of Labour. Based on the Classification of Occupations Used in the Census of POPULATION, 1921. His Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1927.
8. Batley Reporter, 20 September 1918 and Batley News, 21 September 1918,
9. A Dictionary of Occupational Terms, Ibid.
10. Unit War Diary, 2nd West Yorkshire’s, The National Archives (TNA), Ref WO 95/1809/3
11. Medal Award Rolls, TNA, Ref WO329/958
12. Unit War Diary, Ibid. Presumably this should read Le Trinquise River.
13. Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC).
14. Batley Reporter, 21 September 1918.
15. CWGC

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Other Sources:
• 1939 Register.
• Batley Borough Court Records
• Batley Cemetery Burial Registers.
• Censuses, 1891 – 1921.
• GRO Birth, Marriage and Death Indexes.
• Imperial War Museum.
• Long, Long Trail, https://www.longlongtrail.co.uk/.
• Medal Index Card.
• National Library of Scotland, Maps.
• Newspapers – various editions of the Batley papers.
• Pension Record Cards and Ledgers, Western Front Association.
• Soldiers Died in the Great War.
• Soldiers’ Effects Register.
• Will.

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