Sunday 25th October 1914

There are men who are known to have joined Tunstill’s Company in September 1914 but who do not feature subsequently in any known references. The likelihood is that they, like a number of others who can be positively identified, were discharged in the Autumn of 1914 on medical grounds, but this may be obscured by the absence of their service records from the surviving records held at the National Archives.

One such may have been Jim Coates, who was named among the original recruits from Bolton-by-Bowland (see 14^th September) and was subsequently (see 16^th October) reported as having been taken ill with a ‘bad chill’ which saw him admitted to Cambridge Hospital, Aldershot. There are no further references to Jim as serving with the West Riding Regiment and it seems likely that he was discharged as a result of his illness.  Jim Coates would subsequently re-enlist and serve with West Yorkshire Regiment.

Another early discharge seems to have been Herbert Dickinson, who was named among the Settle volunteers, but for whom no further trace of service with West Riding Regiment has been found. However it seems that he did later re-join the Army, as in 1919 he was listed as an absent voter (on military service) in the local electoral rolls. I am currently unable to identify any further detail on the nature of his service.

A third man named as having volunteered in September was John Reynolds (known as ‘Jack’) who was identified in the Ilkley Gazette on 18^th September as being one of eight men from Menston who had volunteered and would become part of Tunstill’s Company. Details of service have been identified for each of the other seven, but no trace has been found of Jack Reynolds, again suggesting that he was most likely discharged in the Autumn of 1914.

(I am most grateful to Judith Knaggs, and through her to Jack Kell, for this information on Jack Reynolds and also on several of the other Menston volunteers).

“Jack Reynolds was a tradesman well-known to the Menston community for over half a century. He had been born in 1884 and had attended the village church school. On leaving school, he had been apprenticed in the bleaching trade at Joseph Gill’s Rombalds Moor Bleach Works at Woodhead. However, in 1910 he had converted the front room of his house (previously the first Co-Op premises) into a sweet shop.

After leaving the Army, he was employed as a boiler man at Lister’s Mills where he had an accident in 1918, which resulted in the loss of his right arm. Undaunted, Jack began a green-grocery business and, until he retired in 1967, travelled around the local villages. His wife, Kate, whom he had married in 1909, ran the sweet shop which was later built on to the front of the original property. Kate died in 1971 and Jack in 1982 (aged 98)”.