PRIVATE WILSON STANSFIELD
SOUTH LANCASHIRE REGIMENT
30TH AUGUST 1917 AGE 19
BURIED: VLAMERTINGHE NEW MILITARY CEMETERY, BELGIUM
This is yet another way of expressing your belief in the fact that there is life after death. For many people this was the only thing that brought them any comfort as they faced the future without those they loved. The belief is so prevalent, as evidenced by inscriptions, that I sometimes wonder whether people could have carried on supporting the war without it.
The words here come from poem by the prolific Scottish hymn writer, Horatius Bonar (1808-1889). When we die it is the evening of our life on earth but the morning of our life in heaven
The evening brings all home. For that we wait,
Which is at once our evening and our morn,
The end of evil and the dawn of good.
Stansfield enlisted on 28 October 1916 at the age of 18 and 11 months. After eight months training he arrived in France on 30 June 1917 and was killed at the front exactly two months later. When he enlisted, Stansfield gave his occupation as 'weaver'. He had been in the industry for at least five years as the 1911 census shows him as a thirteen-year-old 'reacher in cotton'. This is someone who is responsible for creating the pattern in the fabric by correctly organising the threads from several beams. The 'reacher' does the work under the supervision of a 'drawer-in'. And this is not the only old trade I learnt whilst researching Wilson Stansfield: his father was a whitesmith, someone who makes objects out of metal, especially tin.