William Harold Ainley (1898-1979) served as Private with the 5th/6th Cameronian (Scottish Rifles), having enlisted in 1916 initially with the Duke of Wellington’s, and was awarded the Military Medal “for bravery and devotion to duty during an attack on the 23rd and 24th October [1918]...[he] did very excellent work when his battalion suffered heavy casualties.” His Battalion’s War Diary states that “the enemy put down a very heavy barrage…which greatly disorganised the Battalion and caused fairly heavy casualties” but they were able to make an advance into enemy territory despite artillery, machine gun fire and poison gas shells. He was demobbed in February 1919, returned to Shelf and married in 1924. He was a Churchwarden at St. Michael’s and on the Parochial Church Council. He was licensed as a lay reader by the Bishop of Bradford on the 28th September 1940. He was made a deacon at Bradford Cathedral on the 21st September 1952. On the same day he was licensed as assistant curate for Queensbury, where he stayed until 1957. He was then ordained as a Priest and served at various parishes. He died at Ilkeston in 1979 and his ashes were returned to Shelf and buried at St. Michael’s.
Regards,
Ben Stables