Rev. Archibald Ean Campbell MA

This photo is from the collection of Leeds postman Tom Wheldon (also spelt Weldon) who served in 1/8 Battalion West Yorkshire Regiment during WW1 and was a veteran of the Boer War.  

Rev. Archibald Ean Campbell (1856-1921) was Vicar of All Souls, Blackman Lane, Leeds, from 1891 until 1901 and acted as chaplain to the Leeds Rifles. All Souls is not far from the centre of Leeds and close to Carlton Hill Barracks, the former home of the Rifles.

The son of a colonel, Rev. Campbell was educated at King William's College, IOM, and Clare College, Cambridge. After being ordained in 1881, he became a curate in Aberdare, and then rector of Castle Rising in Norfolk, before his move to Leeds.

He was Provost of St Ninian's in Perth from July 1901 and was elected Bishop of Glasgow and Galloway at the end of 1903, taking up the post the following year.

According to Dr Patricia Morris in her 1983 thesis on the Leeds Rifles* "[his] passion for Volunteering led him into joining musketry practice and field days at every opportunity" and it seems he "remained in post as assistant chaplin when he became Provost of St Ninian, Perth (in 1901) and even after becoming Bishop of Glasgow (in 1904), resigning with the greatest of regret on 31 March 1908, when the new TF regulations compelled him to do so.”

She describes him as "immensely popular" and quotes the Yorkshire Post on 17 Aug 1900 which said "The Rev A E Campbell, the cheery chaplain, has so popularised his ministrations that the entire corps has voluntarily attended his early morning short service preceding the working day". He was also "very active in the Temperance Movement" and was appointed chaplain to the Leeds Battalion of the Church Lads' Brigade on its founding in 1897. 

*Leeds and the Amateur Military Tradition: the Leeds Rifles and their Antecedents.  The University of Leeds School of History 1983.  This can be found at http://etheses.whiterose.ac.uk/880/

The Lucas family

These photos are from the collection of Leeds postman Tom Wheldon (also spelt Weldon) who served in 1/8 Battalion West Yorkshire Regiment during WW1 and was a veteran of the Boer War.

The only indication of the identity of the family in the first four photos was the message "With Mr & Mrs Lucas & Family's Compliments" on the reverse of the family group. 

However, three photos of a wedding in the 1920s made it possible to find out more about the Lucases. The first is a picture of newly-weds and has "With Mr and Mrs V T Brooks Compliments" written on the back. Then, in the second, Mr and Mrs Lucas are standing on the right.  From a search of 1920s marriage records, it seemed very likely that these photos were of the wedding of Victor Tom Brooks and Nellie Lucas at Burley Parish Church on 10 February 1923 and this has since been confirmed by one of their nieces and her son.  Nellie's parents were Harry and Annie Maria Lucas who lived in the Burley Road area of Leeds.  Nellie was born in 1898 and her brother William Harry in 1899. 

The line up in the wedding photo above is as follows -

Back row: Tom and Clara Ellen Brooks (Victor's parents), William Harry Lucas (who was one of the witnesses), Annie Maria and Harry Lucas.

Front row: Probably Nellie Moss (nee Brooks) who was Victor's eldest sister, Victor and Nellie Brooks, probably Clara Holden Rushforth (another witness) who was a cousin of the bride.

The records of Woodhouse Cemetery (transcribed on the Yorkshire Indexers site) tell a sad story as far as the Lucases are concerned.  It seems Nellie and William Harry were the oldest of Harry and Annie Maria's children and the only ones to survive childhood.  Four more boys and two girls, all born between 1900 and 1911, had died by 1912.  Arthur was 14 months old when he died of TB in 1904, his sister Dorothy Mary four when she died of diphtheria the following year, convulsions took Albert in 1908 when he was only eight weeks old, May was premature and lived only three days after her birth in 1910, Fred was born in 1911 and survived only eight hours, and finally poor Walter reached the age of five but succumbed to scarlet fever in Seacroft isolation hospital in March 1912.

Thanks to Richard for his assistance in identifying the members of the Brooks family.

PC 428 John Henry Watkinson?

This photo is from the collection of Leeds postman Tom Wheldon (also spelt Weldon) who served in 1/8 Battalion West Yorkshire Regiment during WW1 and was a veteran of the Boer War.  

There is nothing on the reverse of this photo to identify the subject of the photo but the badge on his helmet shows that he was a member of the Leeds Police Force and the number "42" appears on his collar with the edge of a third number just visible.

A list of members of the Leeds Police Force who died in WW1 is included in Ewart W Clay's The Leeds Police 1836 - 1974. The list includes only one man with a number beginning 42 - he is PC 428 J H Watkinson.

Further investigation revealed that a Private John Henry Watkinson of 16th Battalion West Yorkshire Regiment (1st Bradford Pals) died on 3 May 1917 (during the Battle of Arras). It seems very likely that this is a picture of John Henry.

In 1911, John Henry (aged 23) was lodging with Mr and Mrs Kendall in Clyde St, New Wortley. His parents John and Ellen  lived in Sheffield with his brothers and sisters. Sadly his younger brother Walter, a Corporal in the 2/4 Battalion York and Lancaster Regiment, service no 201196, was reported wounded and missing on the same day as his brother was assumed killed. The brothers are listed on the Arras Memorial - John Henry in Bay 4 and Walter in Bay 8.

Salvation Army

These photos are from the collection of Leeds postman Tom Wheldon (also spelt Weldon) who served in 1/8 Battalion West Yorkshire Regiment during WW1 and was a veteran of the Boer War.  The handwriting on the face of some of the photos is Tom's.

Margaret Jane, one of Tom Wheldon's sisters, joined the Salvation Army and is shown here with Tamar Stafford (on the right). The photo was taken in Scranton, Pennsylvania, probably in the late 1880s. In the autumn of 1886, Scranton received a visit from William Booth, making his first tour of North America since Lieutenant Eliza Shirley held the first Salvationist meeting in the US in Philadelphia in 1879.

Margaret was born in Easington, Co Durham in 1864 but her family moved to Bishop Auckland in the early 1870s and eventually to Leeds.  

Tamar was born in Blyth, Northumberland in 1861 and moved to Newcastle in 1879 with her parents, Bolton and Alice Stafford. An obituary for Bolton in 1915 describes him as a former master mariner who gave up the sea in the late 1870s, joining the Salvation Army in Blyth in 1879. He was to become one of their "pioneer workers" in the North East. Bolton briefly ran a Temperance Hotel in Blyth which was badly damaged by fire in 1879 and presumably resulted in the move to Newcastle where he worked as a warehouseman. Several of his family members also joined the SA. These included son Bolton, who was a bandsman, daughters Tamar and Jane (whose husband Harry Rogers became a brigadier) and a number of his grandchildren.

The following photo of Margaret was also taken in Scranton. 

There are also two "tintype" photos - the one on the left is definitely Margaret and the one on the right looks like Tamar. They are both wearing their Salvation Army badges and elaborate bonnets.  There is no indication of the location of the photos in this case.

Both Tamar and Margaret subsequently returned to the UK. Tamar married blacksmith Frederick Wilson in Northumberland in the summer of 1890 and eventually returned to North America - she died in British Columbia in 1923. However, Margaret did not have long to live - she died of tuberculosis in Leeds, Yorkshire on 30 January 1891 and was buried in St Mark's Church, Woodhouse, Leeds four days later. 

The final photo of Margaret was taken in Bishop Auckland so it looks like she was in the Salvation Army before the family moved to Leeds.  She appears older here than in the Scranton photos.

The following photo was taken by the same photographer in Bishop Auckland but the subject remains unidentified.

Another unidentified member of the Salvation Army appears in a photo taken in Willington on Tyne (on the north side of the Tyne near Wallsend).

Finally there are pictures of the Booth family - first of all William Booth.

And this is his wife Catherine.

I think this one is their daughter Emma - the dedication written on the back reads "To our darling Weldon who will always be true to God and the S.A".

This looks like another daughter, Evangeline.

And finally I think this is probably William and Catherine Booth's youngest son, Herbert.

The Howells

These photos are from the collection of Leeds postman Tom Wheldon (also spelt Weldon) who served in 1/8 Battalion West Yorkshire Regiment during WW1 and was a veteran of the Boer War.  The handwriting on the face of some of the photos is Tom's.

These photos are of the Howell family, showing them at different stages of their lives. 

The photo below is of Alice Vickerman before her marriage to Fred Howell. It was probably taken around 1900.  Fred and Alice married in Spring 1905 and had two children, Kathleen in 1908 and Fred Harvey on 13 February 1910.  Alice originally came from South Shields and Fred from Leeds.

This is Kathleen Howell at six months old on 9 September 1908.

And the family - Alice, Kathleen, Harvey and Fred - are shown here in 1910. Fred was a cashier in a coal business and they lived in Mayville Street, Leeds in 1911.

This photo of Kathleen and Harvey probably dates from late 1911.

Fred served as a sergeant in the Army Service Corps during WW1. These photos are undated but were probably taken around 1915.

Fred was to survive the war and the family are pictured here in the late 1920s.

The Wrays

This photo is from the collection of Leeds postman Tom Wheldon (also spelt Weldon) who served in 1/8 Battalion West Yorkshire Regiment during WW1 and was a veteran of the Boer War.  The handwriting on the face of the photo is Tom's.

The following postcard was sent to Tom and his fiancee Maggie Walker by the couple on the right of the picture, Albert Ernest Wray and his wife Harriet.

Albert Ernest and Harriet are shown with their daughter Mabel Winifred (b 1895), the child of Albert's first marriage to Ada West.  Ada had died of heart disease on 19 January 1901 and was buried in Woodhouse Cemetery Leeds (information courtesy of Yorkshire Indexers).  Albert married Harriet Rogers in 1903.

Seated on the left of the photo is Albert's younger brother Frederick William.  His wife Louisa is standing to the right with their daughter Edna Mary (b 1902).  

The date of the photo is probably 1904/5 when Mabel was 9 or 10 and Edna 2 or 3 - Tom Wheldon married in early 1906 so a later card would have been addressed "Mr and Mrs" rather than "Tom and Miss Walker".  Also Frederick and Harriet had a son (also called Frederick) in early 1906, and Albert and Harriet had a son Sydney in 1907. 

The card was signed "B & H" suggesting that Albert was normally called Bert or Bertie.

William Winters

These photos are from the collection of Leeds postman Tom Wheldon (also spelt Weldon) who served in 1/8 Battalion West Yorkshire Regiment during WW1 and was a veteran of the Boer War. 

This photo is of Sergeant William Winters of the 3rd Volunteer Battalion West Yorkshire Regiment (the Leeds Rifles). Like Tom Wheldon, William fought with the Rifles in the Boer War. Their names are included in the Boer War Memorial in Leeds Town Hall.

Back in the UK, William continued to serve in the reserves and returned to work as a painter.

William also appears (seated on the left) in this photo of five Leeds Rifles sergeants probably taken at a training camp in the years before WW1.

He married Nellie Blanshard in Leeds in 1902 but life was to take a tragic turn. On Saturday 12 Sep 1908, William was away from home, working on a job in Ilkley. It was in the early hours that 17-year-old Lawrence Berry, a billiard ball marker at Leeds YMCA with whom Nellie had become friendly, shot her in Chestnut Avenue, 100 yards from her house in Brudenell Road. Berry then turned the gun on himself. He had borrowed the weapon from his employer saying that he wanted to practice at a miniature firing range. William gave evidence at the inquest saying that Berry had been a "visiting acquaintance" whom he had first met on Boxing Day.

On the outbreak of war, William re-enlisted in 1/8 Battalion West Yorkshire Regiment, arriving in France on 16 April 1915.

By the time this photo was taken, William had been commissioned, shaved off his moustache, joined the Sherwood Foresters (Notts and Derby Regiment) as a temporary 2nd lieutenant and travelled to Germany as part of the British Army of the Rhine which was set up in March 1919 to occupy the Rhineland. "Yours sincerely, Billy, Cologne 24.4.19" is written on the face of the card. He was transferred later to the East Yorkshire Regiment and was promoted to temporary lieutenant on 28 May 1919.

The London Gazette reports that he relinquished his commission on completing his service on 11 March 1920, retaining the rank of lieutenant.

William lived at 1 Moorfield Terrace, Woodhouse, Leeds for the rest of his life and died in 1933.

The Shoesmiths

These photos are from the collection of Leeds postman Tom Wheldon (also spelt Weldon) who served in 1/8 Battalion West Yorkshire Regiment during WW1 and was a veteran of the Boer War. The handwriting on the face of some of the photos is Tom's.

Arthur Shoesmith, a Leeds printer, joined 3rd Volunteer Battalion West Yorkshire Regiment (Leeds Rifles) in 1891. He was promoted to sergeant in 1896 and then colour sergeant in 1903. Arthur was one of their best marksmen winning the Gresham Challenge Cup (a competition for  sergeants in the Regiment) in 1900.

He is shown here in his dress uniform - at 6ft tall he must have looked impressive. I understand that the crossed rifles and a crown on the cuff indicate that he was a sergeant in the "best shooting company" in the battalion.

When the territorials were re-organised in 1908, Arthur enlisted in 7th Battalion West Yorkshire Regiment.

At the outbreak of war in August 1914, Arthur was 40 - past the age at which he was expected to fight. However he signed up again and is shown here in his colour sergeant's uniform in 1914. It seems likely that the picture of his wife Edith was taken around the same time.

Arthur was promoted to company sergeant major in January 1915 and is shown here in his CSM's uniform with his son Reginald who looks to have been in the Army Service Corps. Both Arthur and Reg survived the war. Arthur was given his discharge in October 1916 after two spells on the Western Front.

The following photo was sent as a Christmas card in 1917 and shows Arthur with Edith and their children Ena, Reg and Marjorie. It may have been taken around the same time as the above photo, although Arthur has a waxed moustache in the one below. 

Finally, this is a photo from happier times - the wedding of Arthur and Edith's daughter Ena in 1933. Arthur and Edith are on the far right.  It looks as though Marjorie is one of the bridesmaids.