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The spelling of one or two of the surnames looks a bit odd.



I went to Droylsden last Saturday to try and find this one. The Imperial War Museum's site gives its current location as being Droylsden Sports and Social Club, Manchester Road, Droylsden, and its previous location as being
"ON THE OUTSIDE OF THE BUILDING FACING THE ROAD
Labour Club
Manchester Road
Droylsden"

but I could find very little about the club online. Its last entry on Facebook was on New Year's Day 2016, so I thought it was possible that it had closed; another Droylsden club was coming up in an online search, which "was established in Droylsden in 1918 as Droylsden & District Social Club and Institute," so that was the first place I went to. Was told by a regular there that Droylsden Sports and Social Club had closed about four years ago, and he didn't know about a memorial being there. I next went to Droylsden Library, who gave me a couple of email addresses to try, including one for Tameside Museums Service. Having seemingly drawn a blank, I headed off to Droylsden Cemetery to look for any ABW-related gravestones - had just stopped to photograph a memorial in a Rest Garden, then was passing a nondescript-looking building, and saw, from the corner of my eye, what I'd been looking for. As you can see, the building is fairly modern, 1960s at the earliest, so where was the tablet before? There looks to have been a small plaque below the tablet, I wonder what information was on that, and there was a town hall, or institute, on Manchester Road, Droylsden, built in 1859, since demolished, so perhaps it was originally there.
www.tameside.gov.uk/images/jpgl/t02779.jpg

A photo I've recently acquired, showing the tablet at its original site, although we still don't know exactly where that was.

Hi Berenice

I'm sorry you had trouble finding the Droylsden tablet. If only I'd known I could have told you exactly where it is as I've driven past it literally hundreds of times - as well as stopping off to look at it once. Unfortunately I can't help you identify for sure where it originally was although I suspect it was in the wall of the original building on the site before it was demolished and replaced by the Labour Club. A couple of miles down the road towards Manchester there's a plaque to footballer Sandy Turnbull who was killed in WW1 embedded above a row of modern shops that was originally inlaid in the previous building on the site.

David

Thanks, David. I wouldn't have seen the Turnbull plaque as I was on a bus at that point, but once libraries, and hopefully the Manchester Regiment Museum, open again, I'll look out for it.