The Bank Holiday weekend of August 1914 shattered all records. Blackpool, one of the most popular holiday resorts, saw some of its largest crowds ever. In Morecambe, despite the bad weather, holiday spirits remained high. Hotels and boarding houses in Southport were fully booked, and within 24 hours—between 6 AM on Saturday and 6 AM on Sunday—over 40,000 visitors disembarked from 27 steamers onto the shore of Douglas, Isle of Man. However, a sense of foreboding loomed, as the threat of war overshadowed the holiday mood. In Bacup, the St John’s Ambulance HQ on King Street buzzed with activity after receiving orders for all Sick Berth Reservists to be on standby for an emergency. By Sunday, 2nd August, further orders instructed all available ranks of the Sick Berth Reservists to proceed to London that night, with the remainder to leave the next morning. Shortly after 9 PM, over 40 men from Bacup’s St John’s Ambulance Sick Berth Reserve were waved off from the Bacup railway station by family and friends.
The names of the St John’s Ambulance men who left Bacup were as follows: Superintendent Lambert, Sergeants Townsend and Loney; Corporals Law, Barritt, Collinge; Privates Casson, J Hardman, Holden Holden, W Hardman, Ray, Rothwell, Hanson, Hoyle, Brearley, Hatton, Mitchell, Etherington, Butterworth, Brown, Merritt, Maudsley, Stansfield, Shepherd, Price, Blythe, Law, Ashton, Sudderick, Mills, Lees, Chadwick, Findlow, Goulding, Cockcroft, Hargreaves, Porter, Rossiter, Booth and Lumb. The following day, Monday 3rd August, PC. Gribble, a young member of the Bacup Police Force and a Naval Reservist, left to join his ship at Devonport.
Along with the ambulance men, over 5,000 Territorials from the East Lancashire Division and members of the West Lancashire Division were recalled from their annual training camp in Carnarvon—some had only arrived the day before, while others were still en route. This unprecedented event in home defence history caught the railway companies unprepared, resulting in severe disruption to regular services. Departing Bacup on one of these trains were two Police reservists, P.C. Willis and P.C.s William and Richard Coates.
