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Bradford Pals 1914-1918

Welcome to the Bradford Pals 1914-1918 Website.

This site has been created with the prime purpose of recording and commemorating those men who joined the 16th and 18th Battalions of the West Yorkshire Regiment (1 and 2 Bradford Pals) and whose Regimental numbers began with the prefixes 16/ or 18/. Many others served and indeed died with the two Battalions who had different types of numbers but we have concentrated on the original volunteers of 1914 and 1915.

When the website author started researching the information contained here, he did so with an interest in the men of 1st Bradford Pals, their lives and backgrounds, this has expanded over the years to include 2nd Bradford Pals. But there were thousands of other men from Bradford and the surrounding areas in West Yorkshire that did not join the Pals and should be equally remembered and we will do this if requested.

We also acknowledge that primarily this site will focus on the NCO’s and Other Ranks of the two Battalions. But the Commissioned Officers who served and died with these men should also be remembered. We will make every effort to set aside space and effort to recognise these Officers should anyone wish for their relatives to be remembered on this site.

The one and only aim in publishing the website is to properly record and remember our ancestors from Bradford and of West Yorkshire who served in the First World War and all information shown has been checked (and where possible double checked). But it is inevitable that mistakes could have been made and should any visitor to this site notice an incorrect entry or fact please contact us and once we have verified the error it will be corrected.

It is hoped that this website will expand over the coming months and years, with more information being added either from the creators own research or through relatives donating information or photographs of their ancestors. At the time of publishing the author has researched and has some information on all of the men shown in the list of the first thousand published in Bradford Daily Telegraph on Friday 6th November 1914.

We do not intend to cover, in any great depth, the battles the Bradford Pals were involved in, nor the history or politics of WW1.

This is a matter of record and has been covered in depth (and better than we could) elsewhere. This site is about the men, their families and West Yorkshire 100 years ago.

November 2015

Copyright: The Author has tried very hard not to infringe any copyright material but if this has happened unintentionally then we are content to put this right if we are informed. Please contact us at bradfordpalsww1@gmail.com

War Graves material throughout the site acknowledged as being sourced from and copyright of Commonwealth War Graves Commission, from www.cwgc.org

Census information and War Diary content throughout the site Crown Copyright, from www.nationalarchives.gov.uk

Information contained within the site should not be re-used without the owners permission

1915 Recruiting Poster for 2nd Bradford Pals targeted at men from the Keighley area

Christmas Card sent from the Lord Mayors office to the returning Bradford Soldiers from the "Citizens of Bradford" in December 1918