The Renshaw Boys from Salford go to War

James Benjamin Renshaw and Ellen Jones married in 1891 and had five sons and three daughters. Three of the sons were old enough to serve in World War 1 and all three joined up.

One of the three, William Romaine who was born in 1896, was my father. He obviously came back, his brothers, James and Walter, did not.

I should perhaps explain that I was a ‘late’ child of Romaine’s second marriage. During my childhood, in the 1950s, my father was a Swimming Baths Manager and then Manager of a Public Laundry which meant that we lived ‘on the job’. He retired when I was 12. We were very close and we spent a lot of time together.

This closeness and the ‘distance in time’ from WW1 meant he said more to me than he did to my older half-siblings.

My knowledge of his and his brothers’ experiences is combined factual researches and the tales he told me.

Census records tell me that in 1911 James Benjamin was living in Clifford St., Eccles New Road, Salford with seven of his children. His wife, Ellen had died in childbirth in 1910 and the baby, Minnie, had been given to Ellen’s brother. In 1911, James born in 1892, worked in the Dyed Goods Dept of a shipping firm, my father was a electric switch maker and Walter, born in 1898, was still at school.

The National Roll of the Great War (Salford) was a favourite read of mine as I grew up and is now a treasured possession. 

James (Service Number 17256) fought with the 9th Battalion of the South Lancashire Regiment. He enlisted in March 1915 and initially was in action on the Somme. He was transferred to Salonika in July 1916 and killed at the Battle of Vardar on September 18th 1918.

aged just 19.

Linda Parton