Arthur Metcalfe reported for duty
at Aldershot, to join his Battalion (2nd Royal Munster Fusiliers);
he had served eight years as a bandsman in the army from 1904 and had since
been on the army reserve, whilst working in the Bradford fire service and, more
recently, as a policeman in Bradford. Arthur’s younger brother, Albert Mawer Metcalfe, would be one of
eighteen men from Cowling who would enlist in September and become ‘adopted’
members of Tunstill’s Men. The third brother, Jim (b.1899) would serve in the
Royal Navy.
Albert Mawer Metcalfe was born on
14th December 1895; the fourth of five children born to Thomas and
Elizabeth Metcalfe. Thomas was originally from Embsay, near Skipton, and his
wife from Grassington and the family had lived originally in Embsay and then in
Bradford before settling in Cowling in the mid 1890’s. Thomas worked as an
overlooker in a local weaving shed; Albert and his two sisters, Linda and Ann,
also worked in the mills. Albert’s older brother, Arthur, had joined the army
aged 17 in 1904.
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| Jim (far left) and Albert Metcalfe (far right) pictured with other young men from Cowling before a trip to Morecambe c.1909? (Photo: Joan Tindale; Cowling Web) |
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