SOON after the unveiling of this “typical British soldier” in Portland stone in 1921, above, amateur photographer HS Reynolds of Oakworth entered this picture in a competition.

“Bingley and Keighley Joint War Hospital Memorial, Morton Banks,” he wrote on the back, “marking the graves of men who died from wounds and sickness.”

When the Bishop of Bradford had unveiled it in a still-new Morton Cemetery, several thousands “stood bareheaded in the beating rain” of an August downpour. Its sculptor was local master-craftsman Alex F Smith, who had taught therapeutic wood-carving to War Hospital patients.

This memorial commemorates 22 servicemen buried here far from home.

First to die at Morton Banks had been Private Ernest Augustus Michael, who had left the Fiji Islands to enlist in the Australian Imperial Forces. His wreath from Keighley’s mayor and alderman expressed “their gratitude to their kinsman from a far country who had given his life for them and theirs.”

As the Great War dragged on, he would be joined by others like Staff Sergeant-Major George Brown of the Canadian Army Service Corps, privates Allan and Gordon of the Canadian Infantry and Private Martin F Smith of the Canadian Mounted Rifles.