About this Site

This site has been created by myself David Drury, and my good friend Paul McDevitt, who continues to help me with some of the technicalities and general running of the site, and to whom I am most grateful. I would also to like to thank the staff at Rawtenstall Central Library especially Trish for all their help and efforts in making this site possible.

Providence Chapel War Memorial started a number of years ago for me as an introduction into the Great War of 1914-1918 and the people who fought it, including my own family, who also lost a son in 1918. The people who initially took me under their wing when starting in the subject, also had similar but much larger projects ongoing covering most memorials in Burnley (see link Burnley in the Great War, by Andrew Gill and Allen and Andrew Mackay.)

The site of the former Providence Chapel was a place I had passed regularly on my way to and from work in the Manchester and Liverpool area, and often wondered what was beyond the then overgrown privet hedges at the front  entrance the chapel grounds. The Chapel itself was demolished in the 1960’s.  Being  just on the Burnley with Rossendale boundary I decided to start here as there are only nine commemorated names from the First World War period and three from the Second World War that are named on the memorial.

After gathering information from various sources the project was put on the “back burner” due to work commitments and my researching of other areas of the Great War. I have stood before the graves and memorials of some of the men named on Providence Chapel Memorial both in France and Belgium.

Whilst studying the battlefields of the former Western Front and Ypres Salient I have seen the very ground where they fought and fell. This will always be an ongoing and updated site as new information and photos are added. I hope that in some way this site is a worthy memory to those who gave their lives in all conflicts and were indeed sons of Providence.