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| Lt. Eric Duckworth |
By James Patton
Eric was born on 19 September 1895 in Dunsterville House, Rochdale (now a part of metropolitan Manchester). He was the eldest son of James and Mary Duckworth and thus a scion of one of Rochdale’s wealthiest families. Their fortune was founded by Eric’s grandfather, Sir James Duckworth (1840–1915), who was a councilman, four-time mayor of Rochdale and a Member of Parliament 1897–1900 and 1906–10.
Duckworth’s was a major grocery wholesaler and retailer in the industrial Midlands. At their peak, they had 180 stores, which their clientele nicknamed “Jimmy Duck’s." The Duckworth family ownership continued until 1958, but it’s all gone today.
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| One of the Family Grocery Stores |
Eric was educated at Rugby, where he was a member of the Officer Training Corps. He returned home in 1913 and enrolled at Manchester University, intending to study politics and economics. On the day following the declaration of war, he volunteered for his local Territorial Force unit, the 6th (Rochdale) Battalion, Lancs Fusiliers (LF).
Since 1908, all Territorial Force battalions had been designated as either First Line or Second Line. The First was made up of men who were available for overseas service, while the Second’s men could only serve at home, either by individual choice or due to restrictive circumstances. After war was declared, all new volunteers went to the First Line (1st /6th ), including Eric. Later, due to high casualties, the Seconds were deployed overseas as well.
Eric was the type of chap that the LF were looking for. The 6th LF was commanded by a former Yeomanry officer, cricket player, and heir to a textile empire named George Kemp (1866–1945), 1st Baron Rochdale, who was briefly a brigadier general in 1915. The 6th LF had strong local roots. Many men were from Rochdale’s leading families. On 6 August, Eric was duly gazetted a 2nd lieutenant and assigned to “B” Company; at only 18 he was the youngest officer in the battalion.
Within days, the 1st /6th was made a part of the 42nd (East Lancs) Division, which would become the first Territorial Force unit to go overseas, arriving in Egypt in early September 1914. At this time, Territorial units were sent out to replace Regulars in Imperial Service, so the Regulars could be sent to France. This restriction didn’t last too long. On 6 May 1915 the 1st /6th was landed at Cape Helles on the Gallipoli peninsula and rushed into action, where they mounted a costly bayonet charge in the 2nd Battle of Krithia. Eric wrote of this to his father:
I was fortunate to come out unhurt but my platoon suffered. I cannot go into detail as regards numbers of casualties but 12 per cent are killed. We have had our fill of war and I shall not mind when it is over.
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| Present Day Krithia (Alçıtepe in Turkish) |
On 5 August he wrote to his mother:
Little enough did I think 12 months ago today on the anniversary of mobilisation I should be writing to you from a hole in the Gallipoli Peninsula, not having seen you for 10 1/2 months, and to the tune of 75mm guns. However, you never know your luck, and I may see you in time to celebrate my 20th birthday at home, but as things look at present, there’s not much chance of that.
Indeed, Eric’s luck did run out on 7 August, when the 1st /6th LF were engaged at the Battle of Krithia Vineyard. His men recalled that, on seeing the defenses opposing them, Eric’s sardonic message to them was “Well, lads, we are not going to a church parade today!”
Nevertheless, he led his platoon in another bayonet charge that captured the first line of trenches, but he was killed in the unsuccessful attempt to breach the 2nd line. He was 43 days short of his twentieth birthday.
The officers mess of the 6th LF was a tight-knit and socially linked group made up of "the great and good"of Bury, Rochdale, and Middleton, and this old-boy network facilitated Eric’s father’s eventual pilgrimage to the Dardanelles. Within days of hearing of Eric’s death, his father, James, had managed to open a direct line of communication with the officers mess in the field, yet. Within weeks, with the personal intervention of the battalion chaplain, he had received a written firsthand account from one of his son’s wounded soldiers, who had been evacuated to a hospital in Malta.
Private Norman Howarth, told them:
At 9.45am (on the 7th August) Lieutenant Duckworth led our platoon towards the vineyard, Many of the men were green reinforcements and halted at the first trench. About 20 men led by Duckworth kept charging toward the second trench. Only three men made it to the Turkish parapet: Private Porter, myself and Lieutenant Duckworth. Private Porter was about 20 yards to my left and he and I were busy shooting Turks. Private Porter crawled nearer to me and told me that Lieutenant Duckworth had been shot.
When the smoke had lifted, Howarth said that he could see Duckworth 30 or 40 yards to his left, “sat [sic] on the parapet with his head on his chest.” Eric’s parents asked to have Howarth draw a map of the spot where Eric had last been seen, slumped in the Turkish wire. When Eric’s father and a brother made their 1922 pilgrimage, it was this map that guided their search. They took with them an oak tree sapling from Rochdale to plant as a memorial to Eric and the other local men who didn’t return. This would be a semi-official act, since Eric’s father was also the mayor of Rochdale.
They arrived on the peninsula sometime in the latter part of March. Their visit was brief but effective, since they had attentive assistance from the Imperial War Graves Commission (IWGC). We don’t know when the two departed for home, but they were back in Rochdale by 15 April, when they made public the details of their journey in the Rochdale Observer.
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| James Duckworth Carrying the Oak Sapling |
They had meant to plant the oak sapling in the spot where Howarth had indicated that Eric had fallen, but they found that this site was being actively farmed. Eric’s father wrote: “We travelled by the coast and then turned inland… and Krithia village appeared on the right, a deserted pile of ruins. A few hundred yards further we turned right and stopped at the graveyard known as Redoubt Cemetery” where they discovered the graves of several of Eric’s men—and a couple of graves marked as "An officer of the Lancashire Fusiliers: Known unto God’. Could one of these be Eric’s? Eric’s father again:
We had no grave of our own to visit, having numbered with those whose boys fell in advanced positions, face to the foe and under such conditions that recovery was impossible. We found graves of a dozen or more of the men in our boy’s platoon – his (Eric’s) name would stand alongside those with whom he fought and for whom he so sincerely cared.
Thus they decided to plant the oak there, in the Redoubt Cemetery, with a plaque dedicating it to Eric’s memory. They then hired the IWGC’s Turkish gardeners to water and tend to the tree. Eric’s father died in 1937, but over the ensuing years Eric’s younger brothers, all of whom had been too young to serve in the war, continued to pay for the care of the tree and periodically visited.
It is a testimony to the skills of the gardeners that the tree has continued to survive despite living in an alien climate. Over the ensuing years, the tree would gain symbolic importance to the surviving veterans of the 6th LF, and at reunions they looked forward to updates from the Duckworths about how it was faring.
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| The Gallipoli Oak, Redoubt Cemetery |
At one such reunion in 1935, the veterans were shown pictures of the tree, and one poignantly wrote: “Our comrades lie sleeping, and we were shown a fast-growing tree in memory of Eric Duckworth. Its leaves were a rich green and it looks so strong, as young Duckworth was. Ah yes, we must forget those days, but we cannot forget men like Duckworth and many more. We shall go on remembering them until the sun goes down for us.”
The oak tree remains to this day in the Redoubt Cemetery near Alçıtepe, now 103 years old, a unique memorial known as “The Gallipoli Oak.”
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| Dedication Plaque |
Eric Duckworth is also commemorated on:
- The Commonwealth War Graves Commission Helles Memorial.
- The University of Manchester War Memorial, Main Quadrangle.
- The Manchester Municipal College of Technology Memorial in the Sackville Building, University of Manchester.
Sources: University of Manchester and the Western Front Association
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