A HERITAGE lottery project awarded almost £100,000 to research and commemorate its players and staff involved in the First World War has uncovered a heroic story of a Bradford journalist who turned spycatcher.

Two years ago the Bradford Bulls Foundation received £97,800 for its Birch Lane Heroes research project, which will eventually see information plaques installed around the Odsal stadium and the information made available in a new interactive learning zone.

Kathryn Hughes, who has been carrying out the research, found mention of John Ewart Patterson who had worked as a reporter for his father who managed the Bradford Daily Argus and had been reporting on Northern’s games for many years.

He had played Rugby Union as a boy for Bradford Grammar School but became passionately fond of the Northern Union game.

Shortly after the outbreak of war, he enrolled with the 18th Signalling Company of the Royal Engineers and became a despatch rider, serving about ten months on the frontline before being killed on a night mission on June 3, 1916, when he collided with a French vehicle.

While at the Somme he single-handedly rounded up two spies who had been responsible for giving signals to the enemy. He was buried at Picquigny Communal Cemetery. His brother, 2nd Lieutenant George Gordon Patterson of the Kings Liverpool Regiment also died a few months later. He has no known grave but is also remembered on Thiepval memorial.

The Birch Lane Heroes project has also found out about two other Bradford journalists killed earlier at the front. They were Corporal Arnold Day of the Telegraph and Second Lieutenant Eric Cave of the Observer, who had been good friends. Researcher Ms Hughes said: “John won’t be included on the Bradford Bulls Foundation’s WW1 plaque as he was not a member of their staff but he will be remembered by the Club and his story will appear on the Birch Lane Heroes website.” Go to bullsfoundation.org/birch-lane-heroes/

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