The Dalton family moved to our area in the late 1890s and, in the Census taken on 31 March 1901, John and Ann lived at 31 Gamble Road, Thornton with four of their sons: Edward, John, Job and Joe. Another four children were married and lived elsewhere in Thornton: Samuel at 2 Edward Street, Mary Jane (Dennett) at 2 Pleasant Grove, Daniel at 50 Gamble Road, and Eliza Ann (Fairclough) at 6 Edward Street. The men all appear to have worked for the United Alkali Company at Burn Naze. Joe was aged 13 and attending Thornton Council School, Church Road.
Joe's father died in 1909 and, in the 1911 Census, he and his mother were recorded as living in Brown Street, Thornton with Eliza Ann Fairclough, her husband Arthur and their adopted son. Joe worked at United Alkali where he was a fitter's labourer.
The following year Joe married Margaret Holden. Maggie, as she was known, was born in Burnley on 30 March 1891, the ninth of fourteen children of Robert Holden, a carpenter, and his wife Ellen Cross who married on 15 May 1875 at St. Peter, Fleetwood. Joe and Maggie made their home at 1 Ash Street, Fleetwood.
Joe's military service record has not survived but we know that before the war he was a Territorial with the King's Own Royal Lancaster Regiment. Joe was mobilised at the outbreak of war and sent to France disembarking on 14 February 1915. Sadly, his war was a short one as he was killed on 2 June (official records say 3 June) that year along with two of his comrades from Fleetwood, Pte. Jack Johnson and Pte. James Linsley Lee. They were in dug-outs in support trenches and were killed when a large enemy shell that they were lifting exploded. Joe was aged 28, married with no children.
Pte. Joseph Dalton, 481, 1st/5th Battalion, King's Own Royal Lancaster Regiment was buried in Grave 20 at Perth (China Wall) Cemetery, near Ypres, West-Vlaanderen, Belgium. Maggie Dalton remarried to Samuel Walton Quibell in 1917 and went on to have six children.
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