Interim and Final Rolls of Honour - was this normal?

[alanlw]

Whist researching the memorials in Rushton Spencer we came across an old photo of a Roll of Honour similar to that we have now showing those who fought and survived. On closer inspection it is dated 1914-1915 rather than the existing one which is dated 1914-1918. There are also fewer names on the old plaque but more information on each man - first name instead of initial and regiment. So it appears to be a photo of an interim plaque which was later largely reworked, probably because the list of names had become so long.Those who had been killed after 1915 appear on another plaque and strangely one name on the earlier plaque is not to be found on either of the existing plaques.

In nearby Wildboarclough there is a note in the school log book that mentions a roll of honour being received from Macclesfield (presumably the where it was manufactured) on June 24 1915 with the names of those who had joined up by then (but at least some were still alive then).

So it appears in both cases that an interim roll of honour was created in 1915. Was the normal or common, does anyone know? Usually in 1915?

Thanks.

[rolt968]

It was not very unusual for there to be a Roll of Honour of some kind for early in the war; after all they were not expecting it to go on so long. I suspect that finding one now and indeed finding one on display is a much, much rarer.

I have found one in book form on the archive site. At the moment I can't remember who it was for (a school or university?). In one parish which I have been working on the minister read the roll of honour during the service on the first Sunday of 1915. I suspect that quite a lot did. However unusually the session clerk copied the RoH which included where the men came from in the parish, into the kirk session minute book. As a result it survives.

R.

[rflory]

Numerous British schools and colleges published periodic rolls of honour during the Great War, for example Oxford University, Winchester College and Merchant Taylor's School. In addition many school and college magazines published periodic rolls of honour.

[Dai Bach y Sowldiwr]

Here's another from North Wales, the Roll of Honour of Salem Wesleyan Chapel, Llanfairpwllgwyngyll in Anglesey.

Can't see a date on it though.

[Magnumbellum]

Numerous British schools and colleges published periodic rolls of honour during the Great War, for example Oxford University, Winchester College and Merchant Taylor's School. In addition many school and college magazines published periodic rolls of honour.

The practice was not confined to commemorating those who fought. In late 1917 the Birmingham Branch of the Fellowship of Reconciliation published a small brochure entitled Our Roll of Honour, listing, in Gothic script, more than fifty members from the city and nearby who were conscientious objectors, with brief accounts of their varying experiences in prison, military custody, farming and in France with the Friends' Ambulance Unit.

I have recently corresponded with a woman who is a granddaughter of one of the men and great-niece of three others.