Honouring St Patrick’s parishioners who made the ultimate sacrifice

New book records the 201 men who perished

A Coatbridge historian has compiled a book honouring the 201 parishioners of St Patrick’s Church who gave their lives serving in World War I.

Robert Corrins will launch his Roll of Honour compilation at a special memorial mass to pay tribute to the fallen, taking place in the town centre church on Saturday.

It is also accompanied by an exhibition of photographs in the church vestibule, sharing images of more than 150 of the St Patrick’s men who served in the conflict.

Dr Corrins, a retired senior lecturer at the University of the West of Scotland, describes compiling the book – St Patrick’s Coatbridge and the Great War 1914-1918, A Roll of Honour – as a “labour of love”.

The Coatbridge resident spent three years studying the church’s baptism and marriage records, alongside military notes and national records of birth, marriage and death to identify the parish’s soldiers and piece together their life stories.

He told the Advertiser: “I was at a conference with another Coatbridge historian and had been writing an article about memorials to the fallen across Scotland – it made me think that St Patrick’s doesn’t have one and I decided that I’d see if I could dig round and rediscover the names of World War I soldiers who had been parishioners.

“It proved quite tricky because so many records are imperfect and didn’t carry the detail I was looking for; but I managed to recover information about more than 200 young men and put it all together.

“Most official records don’t record religion so it really was a challenge. I cross-referenced with baptism and marriage records at St Patrick’s and integrated different elements so we could see where people had been and who their parents were.

“It’s quite astonishing to see the detail you can find and start to weave together – and it’s only at this level of detail of family history that you can see the interconnections with bigger units and extended families.

“So many in the parish lost relatives in the Great War; 200 is a large number from one community and there were links like cousins and brothers-in-law; the level of grief in community extended family is enormous and quite extraordinary.”

The book contains a section on the history of St Patrick’s and the community of the Coatbridge parish, then the painstakinglyresearched biographies of its soldiers who fell in the Great War.

One of those is James Conlin, a former Albion Rovers and Airdrie footballer who had played for England in the first international at Hampden before a then-world record crowd of nearly 103,000.

He was born in 1881 in Durham to parents Luke and Mary Anne, nee Courtney, with the family moving to Coatbridge soon after where his younger siblings Mary, Bernard and Annie were born and baptised at St Patrick’s.

James married Elizabeth Pursehouse at the church in 1903; and as well as turning out for both Monklands teams during his professional football career, also played for Hibs, Falkirk, Birmingham City, Bradford and Manchester City – with his £1000 transfer fee to the latter being only the second in the prewar era.

He enlisted with the Highland Light Infantry’s 14th battalion to serve in World War I and was killed at Nieuport in June 1917, in the lead-up to the Third Battle of Ypres.

The book costs £ 8 and will go on sale at the Coatbridge church and at Summerlee heritage museum, while a copy has also been placed in nearby Coatbridge library.

Dr Corrins added: “I’ve tried to provide a context and historical background, with a section on the history of St Patrick’s and the emergence of the community from Irish immigrants to Lanarkshire; and then the second section is the biographies and connections with the parish.

“I’ve tried to list all those who fought; in my research I used Samuel Lindsay’s book, Coatbridge and the Great War, and old editions of the Advertiser and the Coatbridge Express.

“Although I’ve written chapters of books and contributed to the dictionary of national biography, this is probably the biggest thing I’ve written – it’s a local history project and a labour of love.

“The book took until about a month ago to finish, but I’m very pleased to get it all done – and to have the photo exhibition at the back of the church to draw attention to it and to the special mass.

“We have around 150 pictures in place and the response has been tremendous, with people dropping in to the church and bringing in family pictures of their relatives who served and who were parishioners, which we’ve added in.”

Saturday’s memorial mass for the men of St Patrick’s who died in World War I takes place at 10am in the Main Street Church.

Labour of love Robert Corrins with his book