11th Battalion, East Lancashire Regiment.

Awarded the Military in the London Gazette of 16 July 1918.

Collison was a native of Burnley, Lancashire.

The Burnley Express of 10 December 1919 reported, MAYOR PRESENTS EIGHT MEDALS. BRAVE DEEDS OF BURNLEY MEN. On Saturday at the Town Hall, a pleasing ceremony took place in the Mayor's Parlour, when his worship the Mayor formally presented to eight Burnley men medals, which they had been awarded by the Military authorities for gallant conduct in the field. Mr. D. Irving, M.P., the Rev T.H. Taylor, Mr. J. Thornber, J.P., and the Deputy Town Clerk (Mr. Ritchie) were among those present. The Mayor, before pinning on the decorations, said on behalf of the citizens of the town of Burnley, he thanked those eight men for all they had done to help in saving this land from being crushed under the heel of the Hun. They had played their part and done their duty faithfully and well. They were true British's and deserved the thanks of all British subjects. The decorations he was about to present, small as they were, should not be estimated by their intrinsic worth, but for the manner in which they came into their possession. He knew that many other lads deserved decorations for deeds, which were probably not seen by those who could send their names forward. There was every reason to believe those lads, whether they gained decorations or not, went into the war with one determination to do their duty, and the people of Burnley were proud of them. In years to come, when they and their descendants came to look back on the gaining of these decorations, he hoped they would value them chiefly for the part they had played in helping civilisation to be free from the cruel Hun, and to save the women and children of this land from the terrible ordeal of having to be at the mercy of those terrible bounders as the women and children of Belgium had been. he hoped they would play their part as nobly in civil life, and that they would help to make this a better England and a land fit for heroes to live in. That was what they all desired it should be, not an England with a wide gulf separating different classes, but one in which the classes should more than ever stand shoulder to shoulder to make it a country of which they could all be proud. The names and descriptions of the men and their particular deeds are as follows, No. 23147 Private H. Collinson, 11th East Lancashire Regiment, 6, Shorey Bank, Burnley Military Medal for "Privates Collinson and Thompson as stretcher bearers, showed conspicuous gallantry, and fearless devotion to duty in attending to the wounded under heavy artillery fire and flanking machine gun fire throughout the hostile attack on the Ablainzeville Moyenville Ridge on 27 March 1918. It was due to the efforts of these men that so many wounded were evacuated before withdrawal. All this done in the open."

The Burnley Express of 12 October 1918 reports:- Medallist Wounded. Private Harry Collison, 23147, East Lancashire Regiment (Pals), son of Mr. Collison, farrier, Church Street, living at 6, Shorey Bank, Burnley, has been wounded again. This occurred on September 28th, and he had been previously wounded on June 28th. At present he is in hospital at Glasgow. In May last we announced that Private H. Collinson had been awarded the Military Medal for good work done on March 27th; when a portrait appeared. Private Collinson, who joined in May 1916, and went out the following August, is 21 years of age, and well known in the Top o' th' Town district. He worked with his father, who was formerly a member of the Duke of Lancaster's Own Yeomanry. Private H. Collinson, who is on the roll of honour at Pickup Croft School, has a brother, Private A. Collinson, a prisoner of war in Germany.

39364 Private A. Collinson, East Lancashire Regiment. POW 1918.