A SERVICE to remember soldiers who died during the Battle of the Somme will be taking place at a church next month.

Whitechapel Church, in Cleckheaton, will be holding the memorial on Sunday, September 4, with the support of the Spenborough branch of the Royal British Legion.

It will commemorate soldiers who lost their lives on September 3, 1916, which became known in Cleckheaton as Bloody Sunday.

The Reverend Brunel James will lead the service.

“This was the second phase of the Battle of the Somme, and September 3 was a day when local men were involved in an attack that led to many casualties,” he said.

“Our service will focus on three local men who died that day as a way of honouring the wider legacy of that generation.”

Captain Charles Hirst, from Royds, was 22 when he died fighting for the 1st/4th West Riding Regiment. He was killed leading his company in an attack on the Schwaben Redoubt, a German stronghold north of Thiepval, in France.

His body was never recovered and his name is listed on the Thiepval Memorial to the Missing.

Cpt Hirst attended Bradford Grammar School, and his name is commemorated on the war memorials at Cleckheaton Sports Club, Conservative Club, and at Whitechapel Church.

Lieutenant Alfred Hirst, of the same regiment as his unrelated namesake, was killed aged 24 at the same battle. He lived in Vine Cottage.

He was educated at Batley and Bradford Grammar Schools and worked at a wireworks in the town before going to war.

He was well known in the area as his father, Eli Hirst, owned the local newspaper and he was Scout Master of the Moorbottom troop.

He is remembered on the memorials at Whitechapel Church and St John’s Church, as well as the Thiepval Memorial to the Missing.

Lieutenant Thomas Vause, of the 1st/8th West Yorkshire Regiment, from Netherfield, died aged 33 in a large scale attack on a post known as the Pope’s Nose, north of Thiepval.

He attended Leeds Boys’ Modern School before Cambridge University where he gained a Masters degree in 1911, and was a teacher at Whitcliffe Mount School before going to war.

In 1932, along with former chemistry teacher Lance Corporal Evan Williams who was killed in 1918, he had a house at the school named in his honour.

He was buried in Mill Road Cemetery in Somme.

Edward Morton, chairman of the British Legion’s Spenborough branch, said: “It is heartening to see local communities and churches remembering local men who served with distinction and in turn passing it on to the younger generation.

“We must try and maintain the support generated by the centenary of the First World War for youth of today to take forward.”