It should still POST even with a dead RTC battery, per my experience.

Is it installed in a case? If so I'd pull it and bench it will minimal configuration. (Video, RAM, CPU)

From there have you verified the PSU to be good?

Lots of variables to check but beyond checking for corrosion and cycling parts, specifically RAM and checking jumper settings for CPU voltages etc....

The dead RTC battery should not keep it from POSTing.

Did you try hooking up only the CPU and a BIOS speaker? Does it beep and complain about no RAM?
If it does add RAM and see if it complains about no video card, add that next and so on.
If it doesn't try reprogramming the BIOS EEPROM .

If all that doesn't help it's most likely a defective part on the motherboard that keeps iit from POSTing.

I have not tried hooking up a speaker yet. I have stripped it back to barebones but had no luck so might have to write off this board. 🙁

If it's super important you can buy a POST card and see if that gives you any codes to follow.

Might not be worth it depending on how much you value the board.

Second that. If you're into retro computing, an ISA POST card is (along with an (E)EPROM flasher) one of the best investments you can make.

Even if you can't figure out the exact meaning of the codes, just the sequence - or lack thereof - tells you a lot about what your board is doing. If it seems to be doing all kinds of stuff, your board is alive and it's just an I/O thing that you're not seeing anything. If it's stuck on 00 or FF, BIOS isn't even starting POST and you need to look at the lowest of low levels of troubleshooting (and/or re-flash the BIOS). Something in between (sequence, then sticking somewhere) indicates a specific component that is having trouble. Etc.

Thanks for the responses. I am not overly fussed about getting the motherboard going it was part of a lot that I purchased and I was going to build a win95 machine from it. I have now ordered a better looking board that is confirmed to work and comes with a 133mhz pentium included so that will be good for my 95 build.
I just hate throwing away things of this age so did hope I would be able to breathe some life into it.

I will have a look into a post card as the ones I see on ebay are only about £3 so its something that could come in handy anyway.