I first heard the story of the Accrington Pals from my father, Maurice, while taking a walk that had taken us past the town's war memorial in Oak Hill Park. My interest had been sparked, and went to a higher level on the first of many trips to the Somme in the summer of 1972, when dad and I accompanied Harry Bloor, an Accrington Pal who had been wounded at Serre on 1st July 1916. Even as a teenager, I knew that I wanted to write about the battalion; I still have the handwritten notes of the sources that I intended to explore. As early as 1976, I was trawling the Accrington Observer & Times on microfilm for articles on the battalion. In 1979, give or take a year, I first visited the Public Record Office at Kew; I well remember the excitement on opening the box containing the battalion's war diary to find Lieutenant Colonel Rickman's handwritten account of the attack of 1st July; a typed version of the transcript that I made that day was deposited with Accrington library and later appeared in William ('Bill') Turner's published history. Bill had learned of my work on the Pals and was anxious that we did not compete; while meeting at his home, I conceded that he should write the battalion's history. By this time, I was embarking on a career in scientific R&D and for the next decade or so I allowed my work on the Pals to lapse.

The 1990's saw two developments which enabled me both to build on the existing knowledge about the Pals, and to broadcast the battalion's history to a wider audience: the release of officers' service records at the Public Record Office (now The National Archives) and the growing accessibility of the World Wide Web.

In 1997, I uploaded the first few pages of what was to become the Accrington Pals website: a short history of the battalion, in both English and German, and a list of the names and regimental numbers of the original Pals (generously shared by Bill). Over the next few years, I shared the findings of my research with Bill, some of which, such as the Cecil Douglas Gay story, he deposited in the William Turner Pals Collection at Accrington library. As the website became known, it rapidly grew in size with voluntary contributions. John Garwood, historian of the Chorley Pals, generously shared information on the Pals which he had accumulated over many years. Denis Otter and David Ingham, both of Burnley, were equally generous in sharing their vast knowledge. Mike Townend, then curator at Towneley Hall Museum and Art Gallery, helped greatly with photographs.

The continued growth of the website has owed much to the generous support of many relatives of Pals. Among them are Nellie Ainsley (Raymond Ross), Percy Allsup (Percy Allsup), Bob Ashton (James Ashton), David Bent (William Ashworth), Louise Baird (Jack Smallshaw), Anthony Battersby (St.John Battersby), Peter Bell (Bart Endean), Enid Briggs (Walter Briggs), Malcolm Bury (Percy Bury), David and Barbara Gay (Cecil Douglas Gay), John and Honor Gorst (Gerald ('Gerry') Gorst), Barbara Hall (Artie Lett), Gerald and Pam Hargreaves (Angus Hargreaves), Pat Kay (Ernie Kay), Marjorie Lloyd-Jones (Arnold Tough), Harold Lambert (James and Thomas Lambert), Diccon Nelson-Roberts (Jack Roberts), Alan Rowntree (Charles Stonehouse), Walter and John Slinger (George Nicholas Slinger), Ian Thomas (Frank Thomas), Terry Whittaker (Bob Bullen), Paul and Anne Willett (Thomas Yates Harwood) and Bindy Wollen (Arthur Rickman). I would also like to thank the many others, too numerous to mention each by name, who have contributed photos.

In the quarter of a century that had passed since the publication of Bill's work, much more information had come to light that warranted a new book about the battalion. In 2013, Pen & Sword published my book Accrington's Pals: The Full Story which brought together the stories of the Accrington Pals and the Accrington & Burnley Howitzer Brigade.

© Andrew C Jackson 2025
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