1900s-1945
Corporal Philip Walter Patching of the Royal Air Force is one of the names recorded on the Leigh War Memorial, and his story can be pieced together from local records.
His birth was registered at Devonport in the first quarter of 1903, so he was thirty-eight years old when he died on 10th November 1942. His service number was 359955, and he had reached the rank of Corporal.
By 1938, the Electors Register placed him at 23 Powder Mills, where he lived with his wife, Maude Mary. The couple had one daughter, Joy, who was a pupil at Leigh School. After Philip's death, Maude Mary remained at the Powder Mills address, still listed there on the 1945 register.
He was laid to rest in St Mary's Graveyard, Leigh, with the burial register giving his home as 23 Powder Mills. His headstone reads "Corporal P. W. Patching, Royal Air Force" and carries the date of his death, while the right-hand kerb remembers a dear husband and father of 38 years.
This profile was published by the village's local history society and last updated on 2 November 2007.