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In the middle of World War 1, on July 1st 1916, 2000 young men from Bradford left their trenches in Northern France to advance across no man¹s land. It was the first hour of the first day of the Battle of the Somme.

There were many others from Bradford who fought in different regiments and battalions.

One of these was the writer J.B. Priestley who was to write in 1934: "There are many gaps in my acquaintance now; and I find it difficult to swap reminiscences of boyhood. The men who were boys when I was a boy are dead. Indeed they never even grew to be men. They were slaughtered in youth; and the parents of them have gone lonely, the girls they would have married have grown grey in sisterhood, and the work they have done has remained undone."

Want to know more?

Bradford Libraries have published the following book: Hudson, Ralph N, The Bradford Pals, 1998.

You can find this title in the Bradford Library Local Studies department where a cassette containing extracts of interviews with some of the Bradford Pals is also available.

The following websites may also be of interest:

THE COMMONWEALTH WAR GRAVES COMMISSION: Their website at includes an online database of the British and Commonwealth dead and provides further information on the war cemeteries.

THE PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE: Holds some records relating to individual soldiers as well as regimental war diaries. Holdings are described on their website at but you will probably have to travel to Kew to consult material.

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