Colonel Austen Townsend Porritt served in WW1; his name is on Stubbins Vale Mill roll of honour. He gifted Chatterton Playing Field in thanksgiving for peace following the Great War.
Names of employees of Stubbins Vale Mill who died in both World Wars are engraved on 2 plaques set in a wall of Stubbins Vale Mill memorial garden. Among the names is that of Colonel Porritt's son, Captain Richard Porritt, a director of Porritt & Spencer.
Richard Whitaker Porritt (1910-1940) of Grange-over-Sands and Ramsbottom was the only child of Austen Townsend Porritt and Annie Louse (nee Law-Schofield). He was elected M.P. for Heywood & Radcliffe in 1935, becoming the youngest M.P. in the House of Commons. Ramsbottom was then in Heywood constituency. A captain in the Lancashire Fusiliers, he was killed at Seclin, 26th May 1940 during the Dunkirk retreat. He was the first British M.P. to be killed in WW2. Another M.P. was killed 4 days later. Heywood's M.P. in WW1, Captain Harold Thomas Cawley, was killed in action, Dardanelles 1915.
A town square in Seclin was named in memory of Captain Richard Porritt.
Richard's parents are buried in Grange Fell cemetery, Grange-over-Sands. Richard's name is on the gravestone. Colonel Austen Porritt gifted pews to a church at Grange in memory of his wife and son.
Colonel Porritt also gifted the Stubbins Estate to the National Trust in his son's memory.
www.rossendale-fhhs.org.uk/files/war_memorials/stubbins_estate.htmlPictures of war graves at Seclin and the town square naming ceremony are on a website about Lancashire Fusiliers.
https://www.lancs-fusiliers.co.uk/features/HarryWroe/Harrywroe.htmThis has personal memories of the Dunkirk retreat.
Website of Rossendale branch of Lancashire Family History & Heraldry Society contains a list of war memorials in Rossendale. The oldest of these is in Rawtenstall Municipal Cemetery. It is reputed to be the earliest Great War community memorial in England. It was erected in 1915 and had only 8 names at the time.
www.rossendale-fhhs.org.uk