George Appleton

Every year at this time in November, The Lymm Heritage Centre's Act of Remembrance is to tell the story behind just one of the names on the Roll of Honour.  This year (2025) is an exception. The very first two names on that Roll share the name Appleton. They were brothers in arms and this is their story.

You can see more in the Heritage Centre window.  Do pause and remember if you are passing. 

Samuel Appleton was born in Hollins Green in 1833 but moved to Lymm  when it was still a boat ride away across the river Mersey. He had married a Lymm girl, with a Lymm name, Ann Brazendale.  Ann was already a fustian cutter and that was the trade that Samuel Appleton took up down on Narrow Lane, now Oldfield Road in Statham.  Somehow Samuel ended  up as master of his own fustian workshop there. One of his sons, Thomas,  married Ann Ball whose father ran the shop and post office in Statham. ( The house is still there).  

Thomas and Ann had eight children, not unusual at the time. There were six sons and the two youngest were George and Sydney.  Both were a credit to their parents. George had gained employment in a Manchester solicitor’s office, quite something for a lad from his background, while young Sydney was a popular local postman.  Both were stalwart members of the Primitive Methodist church on Eagle Brow where George was even the secretary of the Sunday School. He was a keen gymnast too and regularly attended the Statham Lads Club. 

But the even tenor of their ways was abruptly shaken by the Great War. They were only 19 and 16 respectively when it broke out. Both answered the call, George first, Sydney a little later.  Tragically neither would return home. George rose to the rank of lance-sergeant before he was killed by a sniper’s bullet in August 1915.  It must have been  a terrible shock for the family but worse was to come.  In 1917 Sydney also lost his life at the tender age of 19 years leaving not just his family but the whole neighbourhood grieving.  

Two lives cruelly cut short and a family left shattered.

. We will remember them.