Corporal James Barker DCM
6093 1st East Lancashire Regiment
Killed in Action 7th July 1915, aged 34
Lived in Swainbank Street
Commemorated on the Menin Gate Memorial, Belgium
Burnley Express 1/3/1915 - 1/3/1915 - 21/2/1915 - 6/3/1915 - 13/3/1915 - 3/4/1915

VETERAN WINS THE D.C.M. BURNLEY SOLDIER'S GLORIOUS DEEDS. (Burnley Express 27th February 1915)
Private James Barker, a Burnley veteran, has, for bravery at the front, been recommended for the Distinguished Conduct Medal. To Captain F.W. Steele, he has recently written :- "I am proud to inform you that I have been awarded the Distinguished Conduct Medal for putting out a fire under maxim gun and shell fire. I should like to know whether any other National Reserve man has got the same." In a letter to his wife, who lives at 8, Swainbank Street, Burnley, Private Barker says :- "I have some good news to tell you. I have just been awarded the D.C.M., for putting a fire out at our company headquarters. I was under machine-gun and big gun fire. The headquarters was set on fire by a shell busting inside the building."

Private Barker, who is 38 years of age, served seven years with the colours of the Loyal North Lancashire Regiment, and nine years on the reserve. He was in India three years, and whilst out there was called onto active service in South Africa. He then went through the Boer War, and received the following medals, and decorations : (Queens) South Africa (Medal) clasps, Defence of Kimberley, Paardeburg, Johannesburg, Diamond Hill, King's South Africa Medal. At Paardeburg he was wounded in the knee. As soon as the present war broke out he was anxious to re-enlist. "It doesn't matter" he told his wife "I can't rest. I shall have to have a pop." He endeavoured to enlist in his old regiment, but was put into the 1st East Lancashires. When he (first) enlisted he was 18 years of age.

On the 19th January he wrote to his wife :- "We are fighting on the Yser and at Ypres. The Prussian Guard are in front of us. We have had heavy losses, but they have been four to our one. You get very little sleep, up to your knees in water and wet through. I went over to the Germans on Christmas day. I exchanged cigarettes for cigars and rum. They wanted us to play them a football match." Private Barker then says that he has been mentioned in despatches.

He then tells his wife that on December 13th he had a slice of luck :- "We were out digging trenches" he writes, "When we had finished we fell in on top of the trench. A bullet passed through my right breast pocket, my small book and writing material, through my waist-coat jersey and out of my left breast pocket, knocking of the pocket buttons, without touching me at all, thank God. I don't think I shall be nearer getting shot than that.. I am sending you one of the envelopes and postcards the bullet passed through. I look for a letter from you every week in the least. You know there is a mail here every day. You are only about 400 miles from the scene of operations. I write you a letter every time I get a chance."

In the last letter received by his wife he says :- "We are having very wet weather out here just now. We keep expecting better weather, but it his a long time coming. I dare say we shall all be back in two or three months, those that do not get shot. We have some very hard work to do before this war is finished, but we are hoping to pull through. I got your letter and papers this morning. You do not want to wait for me writing, as I can't write when I want. I am on active service now, not in a drawing room."