The Conisbrough and Denaby 100 Project

[conisbrough100]

Hello,

My partner and I are WW1 enthusiasts and are very keen on remembrance. When we visited the Salient and the Somme last year, in the absence of family members to comemmorate (my great grandfather fought, but returned home), we researched men local to our village of Conisbrough, and laid poppy crosses at their graves.

This year, we've gone a bit further.

Working with local historian James Beachill, we are embarking on a project which we have called 'The Conisbrough and Denaby 100 Project'.

Jim has challenged us, over the four years which mark the centenary of the war, to lay tributes (laminated sheets with photos, stories and information of the man) at the graves or memorials of 100 men (100 years, 100 men) from the local area who went to war, but lost their lives fighting for their country.

So far, Jim has identified 60 of our men, and already the list of locations includes Belgium, France, Germany, Turkey and Malta; this is no mean feat.

We are determined to pay tribute to these brave men from our local community. We are also very interested to research each man, his story and the impact which his loss had upon his family, and the local community, which at the time was largely given over to mining. We endeavour to lay each tribute ourselves, however it is inevitable that due to personal, financial or logistical reasons, there may be some graves which we simply cannot reach ourselves. Hopefully however, these will be in the minority.

Currently, we are in the process of researching our men. Jim is identifying the men and their resting places, and I aim to research each man further when we know his details. Our next scheduled visit to Belgium (including a trip to the Loos/Neuve Chappelle area) is at the beginning of August, when we hope to break the back of our challenge.

I would be grateful for any and all support which is forthcoming - I think we're going to need it all! I have setup a facebook page www.facebook.com/conisbrough100, a twitter account @conisbrough100, and I am soon to publish a webpage/blog to support our project.

One thing that I would particularly like to do, is to identify the war diaries for each relevant battalion, in an attempt to identify what happened, when each man died. I think that would be a worthwhile endeavour and a useful addition to the 'picture' of each man. If anyone is able to help resource these diaries as we identify them, I would be uber-grateful!

The war memorials for Conisbrough and Denaby combined list the names of 337 men who died during WW1. I would love to lay tributes to them all but unfortunately that is probably quite impossible. I will, however, endeavour to lay tributes to as many as possible in Belgium as we spend a lot of time there, and cycle our way around so most graveyards are easily accessible given enough time and 'puff'.

I welcome any support you can give... wish us luck please Any Facebook page likes or Twitter follows also gratefully received - we're trying to spread the word as much as possible. More publicity = more remembrance.

[johnboy]

The war diaries may be available from The National Archives site. If available they can be downloaded for £3.30.

[conisbrough100]

That's good to know, thank you for the advice

[Guest maggie.reynolds]

Hi Sarah and Craig

My Grandfather Arthur William Loveridge lived in Wath upon Dearne and worked in Denaby Main up until 1915 when he went to Gallipoli in the RND and was killed 3 months later. He apparantly is listed on the Memorial in Denaby Main and also has a headstone at Cape Hellas which is believed to be his. We wondered if you would be interested in his story and copies of the memorabilia that we have (including a couple of photo's) We are family history " addicts" and from not knowing anything about my Mum's family we appear to have built up quite a dossier.

We live in Melbourne ( Australia ) and can send via email or any other way you can suggest ( I notice that you are on a cycling tour) It must be a fabulous project in which to be involved and a super way to pay tribute to the men who gave their lives and those that returned.

If you are interested in adding A W Loveridge please contact me at maggie.reynolds@bigpond.com.

Best Wishes

Maggie

[conisbrough100]

Maggie I have just emailed you - please accept my apologies, I did not receive a notification of your message!

We are enjoying our project greatly, thank you for your support.