Battle of the Somme: 110th Anniversary

Amanda Hack Excerpts

Thursday 12th November 2026 Commons Chamber

[Amanda Hack (North West Leicestershire) (Lab)]

I pay tribute to the hundreds of thousands of soldiers who lost their lives during the battle of the Somme, one of the deadliest battles ever fought. I thank the hon. Member for South West Devon (Rebecca Smith) for her opening remarks, and the Members who have spoken before me.

On Sunday I attended the service of remembrance and reconciliation at Christ church in Coalville. The most poignant part was when I heard the roll call of the people from the community who paid the ultimate price. It was moving to see the Elizabeth Tower lit up over the weekend to commemorate the 110th anniversary of the battle of the Somme, and to share five personal stories from across the country. Thanks must go to Mr Speaker, alongside the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, which organised it. Mr Speaker said:

“Seeing the faces of these brave people from the Somme on the most iconic landmarks in the country is incredibly moving—faces of ordinary folk who had a future, only for it to be cut short by war.”

One of those folk was Esmée—Barbara Esmée St John— who was from my constituency. Esmée was born in Ashby and volunteered with the Red Cross during the first world war, serving in the No. 26 General Hospital at Etaples, on the French channel coast, which made up the largest centre for medical care of British and Commonwealth service personnel on the western front. Following the opening of the battle of the Somme, Esmée managed a 35-bed surgical ward, working 13-hour days with only a young orderly, just 17 years old, to assist her.

Only a few months later, Esmée tragically caught scarlet fever and died from complications. She was buried with full military honours at the Wimereux communal cemetery. Sadly, the infectious nature of her illness meant that her burial could not be delayed for her family to attend, as was the case for so many. In 1918, Esmée’s father supplied her photograph to the Imperial War Museum, expressing pride that she would be among the brave women and hard workers who will never be forgotten. Esmée’s story is just one of the many examples of the brave women who worked tirelessly and courageously to help soldiers on the frontline, and I am pleased that her vital contribution was recognised.

As North West Leicestershire is home to a rich mining heritage, I also want to talk about the role that miners played in the battle. I read a 2016 article from Mining Magazine about tunnelling companies, which were specialist units in the British Army that were formed to dig under enemy lines. Among them were the “Famous Fifty”—specially selected volunteers from the Coalville area of Leicestershire who went to fight on the western front in 1914. They marched from St John the Baptist church in Hugglescote to the train station in Coalville, with thousands of people cheering them on. Because of their mining background, many of the men became tunnellers, but only 22 of them ever returned. Miners had a particularly useful skillset in the battle of the Somme, because the harder chalk formations under the ground were more suited to their expertise. The volunteers were exceptionally brave and typically worked in spaces that were about 60 cm wide and just over 1 metre high, with the constant risk of the tunnel collapsing.

At the start of the battle of the Somme, two separate tunnels were painstakingly dug, with 900 men working on each. They packed 40,000 lbs of explosives in one and 60,000 lbs in the other, with the blast intended to rip through the ground creating a 450-foot-wide crater. However, German soldiers had detected the tunnelling. The blast was so powerful that the German soldiers were killed, but as the British infantry flowed over the top, they were massacred by German machine guns.

With honour, I dedicate my speech to the miners and women who were at the battle of the Somme, whom we will never forget and who, alongside our brave military personnel, paid the ultimate price.