Private Wilfred Blake Uttley
9445 13th Royal Fusiliers
Lived at 95 Plumbe Street
Wounded in Action 23rd June 1916
Burnley Express 19th July 1916

Mr grandfather, Wilfred Blake Uttley, was wounded in the first World War - I believe in France - and received a medal, and was honourably discharged..

Somewhere in our many boxes we got from my mother when she died was his medal and a brief local UK newspaper clipping of him coming home. Sadly, we may have lost those items when we sorted through her belongings - but are still holding hope for rediscovering them in some corner hideaway.

He was born around 1895. After the war he married Evelyn Mercer, also from Burnley (area?) and they then emigrated to Massachusetts, USA. Evelyn had two brothers, Bert & another I don't recall, who also came to the USA around the same time, circa 1920.

And I have (had) cousins from the Mercers who stayed in the UK - Margaret (died 2006) & Penelope (perhaps still living), and others - I am on another track to trace down that branch of our family tree and connect the parentage, etc.

I believe that the Mercers owned a small grocery, sundry, or convenience store in Burnley between 1920 and 1930, or so.

Wilfred Blake Uttley worked in the textile mills in Lawrence, Massachusetts, USA, for his entire career. But then he and my grandmother opened a local neighborhood convenience store in a wing of their retirement home in Saugus, Massachusetts - penny candy, meats, baked goods, canned goods, ice cream & soda, small household items; all suggestive of the goods from the Burnley store they left behind!

He died of COPD in 1966 in Blue Hill, Maine, USA, when I was 12 years old.

My mom also left us with a hand drawn family tree that she created best she could from her memory, and that of a few known living relatives here and still in England.

My grandfather was a quiet and humble man and didn't speak much (grandma was rather strong willed and ruled the household!). He, and many others who migrated to New England at that time, kept working in the textile industry as they did in UK - textiles very big north of Boston, southern New Hampshire, southern/central Maine, as large and many mills were built along the rivers and waterfalls.

We also have a genuine framed photo of him (like the article) in the boxes. Plus, we have a photo of small group of my grandmother, aunt, or cousins on the sidewalk of their store front in Burnley.

My mom also left us with a hand drawn family tree that she created best she could from her memory, and that of a few known living relatives here and still in England.


btw, my first grandchild just turned three months old - he is Camden Blake Atkinson, still carrying forward the family name. His dad, my son, is Courtney Blake Atkinson. My mom was Doris Blake Uttley.

My paternal grandfather was Harold Courtney Akinson. His grandfather, George Atkinson, married Anne Treacy, in Kannishig, Cork County, Ireland before coming to Massachusetts, USA, in late 1800's.

(Courtesy of his Grandson Paul Atkinson Meredith, New Hampshire, USA)