Madras Memorial register entry

[Northern Soul]

I found this entry on the CWGC database the other day. Can anyone spot the mistake? - probably an 'abberration' on the part of some overworked CWGC employee when the Madras Memorial register was being compiled (1970's?).

Name: TITTERINGTON, JOHN KENNAUGH

Initials: J K

Nationality: United Kingdom

Rank: Corporal

Regiment: King's Own (Royal Lancaster Regt.)

Unit Text: 6th Bn.

Age: 23

Date of Death: 16/08/1916

Service No: 13192

Additional information: Son of William and Ann Titterington, of 34, Cross St.,

Barrow-in-Furness, Cumbria. Buried in Lucknow

Cantonment Military Cemetery.

Grave/Memorial Reference: Face 7.

Cemetery: MADRAS 1914-1918 WAR MEMORIAL, CHENNAI

Terry D. - although it is not a scanning error do you consider that the entry should be corrected?

[Will O'Brien]

Andy the error is that Barrow in Furness was in Lancashire when this soldier died in 1916. Cumbria didn't even exist as a County as it is a 1970's hybrid of Cumberland, Westmoreland & the Northern tip of Lancashire.................although I think I had an unfair advantage in spotting the error

[Terry Denham]

I'll get it changed.

As a point of interest, CWGC use county names and boundaries as they stood in 1960/61 in their database for the location of UK cemeteries (though the Additional Info field should reflect the county name at the time of the return of the Final Verification Form).

1960/61 was the time when CWGC published most of its WW2 registers and the boundaries were largely the same as in 1914-18 though there are some differences.

Cumbria did not appear until 01.04.74

[Terry Denham]

You learn something new every day! The following is straight from CWGC this morning.

The use of the term 'Cumbria' is correct in this instance.

The 'Additional Information' field in the CWGC database contains the information which the next-of-kin wanted to appear in the registers and was taken from the Final Verification Forms (all of which I knew). Therefore the addresses will be of 1914-18 vintage - or rather 1918-early 1920s when the forms were returned.

However, when it comes to India, in the late 1970s CWGC made serious efforts to contact all war grave n-o-k about various maintenance matters. They succeeded in many cases and the latest information was incorporated at that time in the new Madras 1914-1918 War Memorial register published in 1981. This included some previously non-existant entries in the 'Additional Information' field.

The information you see in the database today is the info supplied at that time by the n-o-k and, as CWGC reproduces the 'Additional Information' in the n-o-k's own words, the term 'Cumbria' will stay because that is how they responded.

There may be other examples on the Memorial with the same anachronistic wording.