New CWGC Commemorations

[Terry Denham]

Chris

JONES does not have an England & Wales death certificate. Perhaps her death was registered in Ireland.

[chrisharley9]

Terry

wouldnt the deaths be recorded in the at sea registers?

Chris

[Terry Denham]

There are five VADs listed in Philip Lecane's tome as lost on the Leinster. Only Barrett has CWGC commemoration.

[Terry Denham]

Having read the relevant sections of Lecane's book, I could make a supposition as to why only Barrett is commemorated - in line with the currently given criteria.

Barrett is mentioned specifically twice in the book as being en route to France to resume her nursing duties. It is possible (only a suggestion) that she was the only one of the five that was in that situation and therefore was deemed to be 'overseas' at her death - having set out on the return trip. The others may still have been on leave or just transferring from Ireland to England.

This could fit with the 'died overseas' rule - in the minds of those deciding at the time.

[chrisharley9]

Terry

I can see what you mean - the whole subject needs more research

Chris

[Terry Denham]

We also have to be careful of judging decisions of ninety years ago with today's ideas.

Firstly, CWGC's remit only applies to military personnel as set out in its Charter. Back in the early days of their existence, there was no intention that any civilians would be covered by them - in the same way that, initially, they were not going to commemorate naval personnel or care for graves outside war zones or of post-discharge men.

The latter three subjects were quickly included in their remit and I suspect there was plenty of lobbying to have certain civilians included as well - no doubt on the 1920s versions of the GWF Forum! The military gave way at some point and included certain organisations but under specific extra conditions not applicable to the armed forces. They effectively made them quasi-military organisations to match CWGC's Charter.

I have seen many original IWGC documents, annual reports etc but have never seen mention of qualifying conditions for these civilian groups. The only conditions I have seen have been post-WW2 constructions - no doubt written versions of what was practised immediately post WW1 - or are they?

I have a belief that the obvious groups were included readily (Mercantile Marine, Red Cross etc) but whether individual cases qualified or not was decided on their merit in the early days with the 'rules' only becoming concrete later on - possibly made 'on the hoof' as time went by. This is only a belief and I could easily be wrong but, until I see some early documentation setting out the 'rules', it is an idea that will not go away. This would explain there being anomalies. It does not help that the original records of those decisons seem not to exist.

I am sure that the comment made to me by CWGC that 'each case would have bee investigated at the time' is true but we do not know the circumstances or details of those investigations: so they have to be taken at face value.

The fact is that we now have a set of rules which, if applied in retrospect, seem not to fit a few cases. As Chris, says, far more digging is needed.