Heavy casualties were reported among Lancashire and Cheshire Battalions with thirty four officers killed and 134 wounded or missing.
Among the deaths that week, Sapper H Hunt, of Gorton, who died of his wounds and Private John Courteney, a former taxi driver in Manchester who lived in Levenshulme.Lance Corporal Heathcote of the Manchester Regiment who was killed by a shell at the age of twenty two, who before the war was assistant radar at the office of the Daily News and Leader and Corporal Howarth Ashton of Collyhurst.
Others named, Private Thomas Chapman of the Cheshire regiment of Long Street Ancoats, twenty one years of age who had enlisted five months previously and Private John Meadowcroft of Ardwick, killed by a bomb that exploded near the trenches, forty one years of age who left a widow and six children.
Should this year’s Royal Show be abandoned was one of the questions of the week, with concerns that present traffic difficulties around the city would be enhanced by warehouses filled with goods that will not be accepted by the already busy railways and be forced into transporting goods by van.
However the authorities believed that the show shows go ahead in the best interests of the country.The Duke of Portland, the president of the Royal Agricultural society said that those who were interested in agriculture and were not of an age when they should take their place in the armed forces, could not give better than give their support to the national institution. it was expected that the King and Queen would also be attending.
Easter was approaching with the railways expecting a busy weekend.Extra trains were being laid on to Blackpool. The war was having an impact on Good Friday with a shortage of fish being reported.Special fish trains were being laid on from Grimsby in the early hours of Maundy Thursday to supply Manchester’s fish markets on what was traditionally its busiest day.Prices at the market were expected to be high given the shortage.
Easter was reported quiet though in Manchester, the streets were crowded and reported the Evening News, people wandered aimlessly about peering through the windows of the closed shops….The restaurants and eating houses were open and did excellent business, but some of the sightseers, it was noted, made no secret of the fact that they had brought their lunch with them.
That Monday the people of Manchester were first made aware of the rebellion in Ireland.Post Office seized by rebels said the headlines, telegraphs cut, twelve lives lost with the rebels in possession of four or five places in the city.The situation though was said to be in hand while it was reported that Sir Roger Casement had been captured attempting to land ammunition from a boat off the Irish coast and was in military custody in London.
