A TRIBUTE to 12 First World War soldiers who had worked at a Radcliffe waste water plant has been handed to Bolton Museum after spending decades hidden away from the public.

The dozen were called up from their jobs to fight in the trenches and are featured on a scroll which hung on a wall at the sewage works for 80 years.

The hand-painted scroll commemorates Bolton Corporation Sewage Department employees who were sent to join the British servicemen on The Somme.

It has been described as unique by the Imperial War Museum and is now to go on permanent display in Bolton.

Peter Daley, unit controller at the Radcliffe works, said: "For as long as anyone at United Utilities can remember, it hung on the wall at the waste water treatment works at Ringley Fold.

"When we were refurbishing the offices, we thought it might have some historic value and would be safer in the museum."

Two of the men died during the war and are identified on the scroll as Charles Mather, aged 27, of Wentworth Street, Bolton, and Robert Wadeson, aged 25, whose mother lived at Cope Bank, Smithills.

Mather held the rank of Pioneer and served with a special company of Royal Engineers. He died in July, 1918, and is buried at Arras, in northern France.

Private Wadeson fell on The Somme in 1916. His body was never found.

The ten who survived the 1914-1918 conflict are listed as F Heys, W E Speight, W H Rawlinson, J T Aspinall, F W Allen, T L Whittle, M E Mather, R Longworth, J Boardman and J Sefton.

Sean Baggaley, keeper of social history at the museum, said: "The Imperial War Museum believe this is the only surviving example of a sewage department roll of honour.

"It is a historic item in an ornate oak frame and, unusually, there are individual photographs of all 12 men."