1549: Corporal Albert Slatford (pencil drawing)

Albert Slatford was born in 1879. His family thinks he volunteered near the beginning of the war, and joined the 13th and 9th Manchester regiment. He was a corporal in the 13th. His father had been a soldier before him, and Albert was born in the barracks.

He was always an amateur artist and family legend says that he attended night school art classes with Lowry as a fellow student. His favourite medium was watercolour. Included in his archive objects is a pencil drawing found after his son's death years later, folded amongst his other papers. It depicts an evocative scene in the trenches and is dated 12th August 1917.

The family knows nothing more about the picture, or Albert's war record. He did survive the war, and died eventually in 1945.