AN exhibition being staged at Colne Library tells the story of how an auxiliary hospital was set up to care for the town’s war wounded.

At the outbreak of the First World War, hundreds of men answered the call to serve their country.

Colne was no different. A century ago, it had a population of 26,000 who worked in the many mills, iron foundries, works making looms and mill furnishings, and the breweries or brick works.

Confident the war would be over be Christmas many of then volunteered, in a bid to see the world, unaware of the horror they would face.

As they returned home, disfigured, wounded and dazed, Colne like many of our East Lancashire towns needed an auxiliary hospital to care for the injured, as main hospitals overflowed.

The library exhibition includes newspaper reports telling how Colne was immediately affected by the declaration of war on August 4, 1914.

Ambulance men from Trawden and Colne left to serve aboard ships, hospital ships and in shore-based hospitals.

The men marched to the railway station, watched by cheering crowds and led by a band.

Some of the Colne Ambulance Corps left to serve with the Voluntary Expeditionary Force, which could be called on to leave England at any time.

They were: S Diamond, A Haygarth, J Berry, C Berry, J Baldwin, T Gibson, A Smith, J Macroe, G Christian, A Burrell and H Earnshaw.

In the weeks and months that followed, others left the town and surrounding villages to serve their country.

Many men joined the East Lancashire Regiment, famous for the Accrington Pals. The Regiment served on the Western Front, at Gallipoli, and in Macedonia, Egypt, and Mesopotamia, earning a total of 120 battle honours and suffering 7,000 casualties.

Dr Dickey, commandant of the Voluntary Aid Detachment, Colne Division, soon received a communication asking for a hospital to be prepared for wounded soldiers.

Alderman Hewitt-Dean offered the use of his former home in Albert Road for a temporary hospital.

It was equipped with 12 beds and residents loaned bedding and materials, while local ladies helped out by fundraising to buy equipment such as blankets.

Dr Dickey was appointed consultant surgeon and for both his work at the auxiliary hospital and at the town’s cottage hospital he was later made an OBE.

Colne’s first officially listed casualty was 43-year-old Major Raymond England, RFA.

He was killed in action just three weeks into the war, on August 25, 1914.

His family lived at The Gables, in Albert Road, which later became the town’s library.