Interesting old article from 1919. 190 members of Smithies club served in WW1, 4 were decorated and 10 were killed. Following on from that Longcar WMC
Very sad...in the case of the clubs many of these memorials were lost when new clubs were built in the 50's and 60's...close relatives had died off and new people hadn't a clue who was on there. A friend of mine worked for Booth's scrapyard in Rotherham, he had a couple of large biscuit tins full of scrapped WW1 medals that he used to save from the smelter, unfortunately someone else found the tins and weighed them in.
Never knew there had been a Longcar WMC, any idea where exactly that was? I've always lived in that area and never knew one existed.
Cheers for that. Basically a bit higher up than Longcar Inn on other side of Racecommon Road. Never heard anyone ever mention it before.
The Longcar Inn has been closed a while. I know the Barnsley war memorials project are hoping the memorial may have been moved to there.
I'd be surprised, I used to go in the Longcar in the 70's....obviously it's a long time ago but I think I'd remember if it had been on display, hope I'm wrong though.
My great great grandmother Lucy Watkin (nee Malinson) was the first publicans of the Longcar Inn you see today built in 1914, The year previous my great great grandfather (Richard Watkin) had died in the original Longcar Inn falling down the cellar steps drunk, the original was roughly on the same site just more facing towards where the Shaw Inn is, they were in the process of planning the current building at the time of his death and Lucy carried on as sole publican with the help of other family members until her death in 1926, I believe the Longcar Inn stayed within the family right through until the early 1950's. Sadly I only started to find all this out just as the pub was closing so didn't get a chance to look around it. On a note the A.Watkin on the Longcar WMC. Memorial was one of their sons, who would have been my great grandfather bother.
Yes sadly I've seen both, the inquest was carried out by the Pontefract coroner, drink was a big part of the Watkin line and a lot were publicans, Richards father Thomas had run the rising sun in Hoyland prior to taking over the Longcar Inn in the early 1900's at least a couple of his sons ran pubs too including I believe my great grandfather Harry Watkin the Shaw Inn which wasn't a good mix for alcoholics, and was probably why my grandmother detested drinkers all her life but we never really knew why until me and my son started looking into our family history, I wish we'd have done it before she passed. I believe there was an element of alcohol involved in Fred's death ( he passed a couple of years later from the injuries sustained) too I believe he'd been drinking at the races prior to cycling home. Thanks for taking the time to dig those up, family history or any history is always fascinating.
