Universities at War

Frank Dale was born in the last quarter of 1891, the elder of two sons of Frank Dale, a farmer, and his wife Anne Maria (née Eardley). The family farmed at Mawbern Hall in Adlington, Cheshire, and Frank Dale junior attended local schools. He matriculated as an Unattached student at Durham University to study Theology in 1915, and was probably attending a theological college in his home region associated with the the University of Durham. Dale passed his first public examination in Theology in the Easter term of 1915, but the war prevented him from completing his degree.

Frank Dale was commissioned from an Officer Cadet Unit into the 4^th Battalion, Cheshire Regiment, on 28 March 1917. He was reported wounded on 20 August 1917, by which date he had transferred to the 13^th Battalion. The battalion was then part of 74^th Brigade, 25^th Division, and was engaged in a phase of the Battle of Passchendaele. He was transferred to a hospital in England, and died of his wounds nine months later at the John Leigh Memorial Hospital at Woodbourne, Brooklands, Cheshire on 27 May 1918. He is buried at St Peter’s Church, Prestbury. His sacrifice is commemorated on war memorials at St John’s Church in Aldington, and St Peter’s Church in Prestbury.