Error on Headstone

[Ken Lees]

Thanks to the kindness of Peter Bennett of this fine forum I now have photographs of the headstones of all of the men of the 9th King's Liverpool Regt. who were buried in the cemeteries at St. Sever Cemetery and the corresponding extension.

I was quite surprised to see that the headstone of George Roland Wallace shows his date of death as 2nd June 1940.

The CWGC database gives the date 2nd June, 1919 whilst the entry in SDITGW claims it was 2nd June 1918.

Further confusion, but perhaps more easily explained is that he is given on his headstone as 'Rifleman' in the 6th Bn. whilst his service number is from the post-1917 9th Bn block. Obviously he could have transferred from the 9th to the 6th, but I have nothing in my notes to that effect.

I shall delve deeper and try to ascertain the correct date of death before reporting this to the CWGC.

Ken

[Neil Clark]

Hi Ken,

Interesting thread for me, during my research on Ashford war memorials I came across many many similar potential conflicts concerning dates of death etc. In the end I had so many I decided to let it go.

There are many forum members who will tell you how hard it is to convince the Commission to change their records.

I made the decision not to challenge them because the men were after all commemorated (albeit with wrong dates of death). I think most of the errors are computer generated. If you have a single one then it may be worth trying to get it corrected. It does seem a glaring error - 1940!

Perhaps he died in WW2, but it looks like you are right.

Good luck.

Neil

[Jim Strawbridge]

You won't have a problem with the CWGC for if their website shows 1919 then it is merely an error between them and the stonemason who produced the headstone. The CWGC will change the date if brought to their attention. However whether 1918 or 1919 is another matter and full evidence will have to be provided to them.