MORE than 1,300 Darwen lads went off to fight in the First World War Great War, never to return. The thing is, though, no one is quite sure of the exact number.

Now, local historian Tony Foster has started the mammoth task of coming up with the definitive list.

He said: “It’s a similar story all over the country.

“There are just over 3,000 names on the Blackburn Roll of Honour but there were certainly a lot more.”

Blackburn historians believe reckon this list was compiled after townspeople had been invited to send in the names of relatives who had been lost, but it’s likely that a lot would not have bothered.

Tony’s mammoth task is well under way.

Researchers already knew of the first enlisted man to be buried in Darwen Cemetery – Private Richard Aspden Knowles who died from tuberculosis before he could set off to fight.

The first soldier who had actually seen action to be interred there was Private Alex Done who had been badly wounded in France that November. He was buried in December, 1914. But who was the first Darwen lad to be killed?

That, says Tony, was John Keown, the son of Francis, a police constable, and Jane Keown.

Though born in Todmorden in 1880, the family moved to Darwen when he was small.

Keown joined the East Lancashire Regiment in 1899 before moving to the Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers and served in the Boer War.

After five years he returned to Darwen and his job as a tailor; he worked for the Darwen Industrial Co operative Society.

He married Maud Kay in 1903 at the Register Office, Blackburn and they had five children – Francis (born 1904), Mary (1906), Ann (1907), Wilfred (1909) and William (1913).

At the outbreak of war, as a reservist, John rejoined his regiment and the 2nd Battalion was deployed straight to the Western Front in August 1914, as part of the British Expeditionary Force.

The battalion was part of the 4th Division that was heavily engaged at the Battle of Le Cateau at the end of August. The battle was fought on August 26, after the British and French retreated from the Battle of Mons and had set up defensive positions in a fighting withdrawal against the German advance at Le Cateau-Cambrésis.

It was on the first day of action that John was reported ‘“missing, presumed killed”’, but it was almost 18 months before his family received firm news.

The Darwen News reported his death at the beginning of January, 1916.

John was one of the first casualties to be buried at Esnes Communal Cemetery near Cambrai. He was 324 and the family he left behind lived half-way up Vernon Street, Darwen – he is also remembered on the war memorial at St Joseph’s Church.