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128 Leigh Road, Howe Bridge - The Lee family

At no.128 Leigh Road lived the Lee family. It was a large family of seven sons and four daughters which wasn’t unusual at the time. What was unusual was the sacrifice that they made during the Great War when five of the sons enlisted to fight. All five were described as ‘sturdy athletic-looking young fellows’ who had hard physical jobs in the pits and played football for local teams. The eldest of the quintet, Peter went out to Egypt with the Territorials then joined the County Palatine Artillery. The second eldest, Thomas joined the North Lancashires, whilst younger brother, David joined the South Lancashires. The two youngest, Joe aged 20 and Fred, only 17 both joined the Atherton 5th Manchester Territorials.

Within months of enlisting, Fred had a narrow escape in the Dardanelle Campaign when a Turkish bullet went through his water bottle and stuck in his belt. Big brother, Joe casually mentioned the incident in a letter home before requesting chocolate, caramel and writing paper, but within two months he himself was killed charging a Turkish trench. His best pal, Tom Hunt described how Joe had predicted his own death the night before saying, “Tom, I shall never get through that theer morn. I shall get killed reet enough.” Fred had a nervous breakdown on hearing the news but recovered to continue fighting only to hear of the death of Thomas four months later.

In May 1918, Joe was awarded the Military Medal for good work during heavy fighting in France but in August he was struck by a shell and died in the ambulance van on the way to the dressing station. He was only 21. Peter and David survived the war but must have found their homecoming difficult without their three siblings. We will now move down Leigh Road to the Atherton War Memorial.

Article published in the Leigh Journal on the 16 July 1915 about the 'Lee' brothers.