BOLTON’s Victoria Square has been the focal point for the town’s Remembrance Day commemorations for almost a century thanks to the presence of its imposing war memorial.

The aftermath of the First World War saw the biggest single wave of public commemoration ever with tens of thousands of memorials erected across England and Bolton, a town which lost over 3,500 lives in the war, was no different.

The nature and the location of the Borough’s memorial were subject to protracted debate and deferral, with the original location of Queen’s Park eventually rejected in favour of a more central location despite worries that it might be too noisy and crowded.

By May 1925 a reconvened war memorial committee had settled upon Victoria Square close to the Town Hall, within which was to be a Hall of Memory displaying the Roll of Honour.

The architect Arthur Hope was commissioned to undertake the overall design and a competition for the figural sculpture was launched in mid-1927, stipulating that the figures should be symbolic of struggle, sacrifice and victory, with Victory as the crowning figure.

The sculptor chosen was Walter Marsden, a veteran of the Great War who was born in nearby Church. He had served as an officer in the 1st/5th Loyal North Lancashire Regiment, winning the Military Cross in 1917 at the Battle of Ypres. At Cambrai in the same year he was captured and taken as a prisoner of war.

Prior to enlistment, Marsden studied art at Accrington Technical School and his talent as a sculptor were recognised whilst working as an apprentice in the terra cotta department of the Accrington Brick and Tile Company.

From Accrington he went on to Manchester Municipal College of Art and the Royal College of Art, London.

He went on to design a number of war memorials, mainly in Lancashire, including those at Lytham St Anne’s, Heywood and his native village of Church.

The memorial and Hall of Memory, which was installed in the nearby Town Hall, were unveiled on July 14, 1928 by the Earl of Derby, but progress on the sculptures was slow and they were not installed until 1932.

A second unveiling ceremony took place on Armistice Day 1932, attended by Colonel CK Potter. The final cost was £7,600, raised by public subscription.

Ever since, thousands of veterans, dignitaries and members of the public have gathered at the Cenotaph with our archive images showing some of the huge crowds that have gathered over the years.

Our oldest photograph of the ceremony here dates back to 1979 and shows proud First World War veterans on parade. Despite heavy rain, hundreds of people turned out for the Remembrance Day service.

Similar scenes are shown taken from the service in 1983 and 1991 where the Mayor of Bolton, Cllr Gerald Riley is pictured preparing to lay the town’s wreath in Victoria Square.

A photograph from 1990 shows Bolton’s Mayor, Cllr Geoffrey Smith, approaching the Victoria Square War memorial.

In 1985, we wrote about RAF hero Frank Foster, who was furious with the organisers of Bolton’s Remembrance Day service.

Frank was angry that the men who stormed the beaches at Normandy in 1944 had found themselves at the back of the queue to lay wreaths after the Normandy Veterans’ Association were one of the last organisations asked to pay their respects. Frank is shown laying his wreath alongside CND campaigner Louie Davies.

Also featured is a photograph from 1948, showing Bolton’s Mayoress buying the first poppy from volunteers who the newspaper said were selling them on the corner of Blackhorse Street and Deansgate.

By November, 1978, it had become tradition for the Mayor to but the first poppy sold in the town and our picture shows appeal organiser Grayhame Simpkin with Mayor Adam Hibbert and his wife.

Mr Simpkin told the newspaper that nearly half a million poppies would be distributed during that year’s appeal which was hoping to top the previous year’s figure of £5,020.

Mr Simpkins said: “We must increase on last year’s figure to keep pace with inflation.”

Two of the other pictures here were taken at some of the other War Memorials in the borough.

In November, 1975, we were there to capture the Town Mayor of Horwich, Cllr Walter Taylor, laying a wreath in the Garden of Remembrance on Lever Park Avenue.

In the same year, our final image shows 80-year-old Jonathan Baxter, who laid a wreath on behalf of the Farnworth British Legion Club at the War Memorial in Farnworth Park where a Cenotaph was built in 1924, and a Garden of Remembrance after the Second World War