WILFRED Rishworth was one of several young men from Steeton who joined the army at the same time in 1915.

According to records this peacetime church organist and spinning overlooker was the first of them to be killed.

Wilfred was born in 1893 and grew up in Steeton, where his father worked in a bobbin mill as a wood turner.

Wilfred was active in Steeton’s St Stephen’s Church and its Sunday School, with his piano skills much in demand for entertainment by the children.

In January 1915 he enlisted in the army and that July disembarked in France with the Royal Field Artillery.

After about 20 months of service Wilfred was killed behind the lines along with one of his comrades when a German shell burst above them.

Just two weeks later two of his Steeton comrades in France, keen sportsmen Private George Emmott and Gunner JW Wilson, were respectively wounded in the leg and gassed.

Wilson had joined with Wilfred, and the pair had been at home on leave together just three months before Wilfred’s death.

Emmott and Wilson had both been prominent players with Steeton’s cricket and football teams before the war.

Wilfred is remembered on the Steeton war memorial, the St Stephen’s church memorial and the Steeton-with-Eastburn roll of honour, originally in the Mechanics Institute but now at the church.