Email from John’s grandaughter, May 2021: I am trying to research my family history and have found that my grandfather died young (aged 33) in 1922 of TB and had been discharged from the Border Regiment in WW1 as unfit for duty.  My mother (who is also now deceased) was a small child when he died and so had no solid memory of him, especially as her mother died a few years later and so there were no family stories handed down. On his death certificate it states his job as “Factory Patrol”. I seem to recall that at some stage an aged relative told me that my grandfather had been a “policeman”.  As my grandfather was living at Mossband, I would like to find out whether he was some sort of security guard at the munitions factory there. I only have very sketchy information about my grandfather, John Collins Ruddick.  He was born on 4 October 1888 at 37 South John Street, Carlisle to Sarah Jane Ruddick, a cotton reeler.  There is no entry on his birth certificate for a father.  He died on 31 January 1922 from TB at Mossband where he was living with his wife and 6 children.  As I said in my letter, I had been told by a relative that when he was medically discharged from the 11th Battalion (Lonsdales) of the Border Regiment during WW1 he had become a “policeman”, but on his death certificate it states his occupation as “Factory Patrol”, and as the biggest factory in the vicinity of Mossband was the Munitions Factory, I wondered whether this was where he worked.

John Ruddick and his family. Photo kindly shared by family.