Andy Wade Posted 10 May , 2015 Share Posted 10 May , 2015 I'm delighted to be able to say that we've just found one of Keighley's 'Lost' war memorials! I had a phone call yesterday morning from a local British Legion member to pass on information leading to the whereabouts of one of our lost war memorials. A man had walked past it in the morning and got in touch with them. It was leaned up against a wall by some wheelie bins, presumably for collection! I got directions and went to have a look and found this: I loaded it into the back of my estate car and brought it home, after knocking on a few doors nearby to see if anyone knew anything about it and one resident told me that a nearby house had recently been cleared out and it was on the pavement with some old furniture, which had already been removed. I've looked in our records and identified it as the Temple Street Chapel WW1 memorial which is described as 'Lost' by the Imperial War Museum. One of the names is that of Arthur Hastings, the first born and bred Keighley man to be killed in WW1. From a newspaper clipping I know he was a member of the Temple Street Brotherhood, which met at this chapel.The inscription describes some memorial windows in the church and these windows are part of an exhibition of local stained glass in Cliffe Castle Museum which is at the other side of town. My best guess is that a parishioner may have taken this memorial home for safe keeping when the church closed in 1978. The windows were removed from the building (which is now a mosque) and saved but the memorial had disappeared. Now it has turned up again and is safe in my garage for the weekend and I'll contact the local museum this week to see if they will take it for safe keeping. Happy? Just a bit... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ss002d6252 Posted 10 May , 2015 Share Posted 10 May , 2015 Lucky find. Wouldn't have lasted long left out like that. (They'd also not get bins like that emptied around here) Craig Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andy Wade Posted 10 May , 2015 Author Share Posted 10 May , 2015 Here's a better picture of the memorial, once I'd got it home and cleaned it up a bit: We will also contact the Imperial War Museum to give them all the information we have, as soon as we've established a home, hopefully with the local museum. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Martin Feledziak Posted 10 May , 2015 Share Posted 10 May , 2015 What sort of person would even consider putting something like this out and treating it as junk !! Shame on them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andy Wade Posted 10 May , 2015 Author Share Posted 10 May , 2015 Apparently it had been outside on the pavement for at least a week. I'm amazed that it was still there. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bigronhartley Posted 10 May , 2015 Share Posted 10 May , 2015 Hello Andy Is that you in the picture ? Nice to put a face to a name ! Good luck with your excellent work. Regards Ron Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GrahamC Posted 10 May , 2015 Share Posted 10 May , 2015 Well done that man. Great job. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andy Wade Posted 10 May , 2015 Author Share Posted 10 May , 2015 Yes it is me Ron, sorry about my ugly fizzog, but the local newspaper insists on having a person in the picture as well. They think it adds human interest... Cheers Graham. I had to have a couple of beers last night to celebrate the good news. Out of 55 war memorials in the town we now have just ten that are listed as 'lost'. Goodness knows where these others are, but it makes me just that little bit more optimistic that we'll find more of them as the profile of the Project gets bigger. Had we not been shamelessly publicising our work all over the place, I don't think I would have had the phone call which enabled me to react quickly and save this one. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Roger H Posted 10 May , 2015 Share Posted 10 May , 2015 Great work! Roger Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andy Wade Posted 10 May , 2015 Author Share Posted 10 May , 2015 It's even got the name of the carpenter who made it on the back, written in what looks like a blue wax carpenters pencil, along with an instruction to create a 1/4 rebate for the moulding that holds the main panel in place. We think he was Norman Albert Ellison of 'Lees', which is a small village nearby. I'm currently checking for his history and I think I've found a candidate, Norman Ellison is on the 1911 census for Haworth (less than a mile from Lees) but he's still an 11 year old schoolboy, although he would have been 21 or 22 years old when the memorial was created in August September 1921, so he could easily have completed an apprenticeship by then as he could have left school at 14 years of age. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Anneca Posted 10 May , 2015 Share Posted 10 May , 2015 What a great find and a great recovery! Well done Andy, you must be well pleased. Anne Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dai Bach y Sowldiwr Posted 10 May , 2015 Share Posted 10 May , 2015 Very well done Andy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
daggers Posted 10 May , 2015 Share Posted 10 May , 2015 Good work, sir! D Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Admin Michelle Young Posted 10 May , 2015 Admin Share Posted 10 May , 2015 Well done Andy Michelle Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pighills Posted 10 May , 2015 Share Posted 10 May , 2015 Great find Andy, well done for saving it. You'd think in this day and age, with so much information and commemoration happening, that this sort of thing would't happen anymore. Thankfully someone had the sense to recognise it for what it is! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lancashire Fusilier Posted 10 May , 2015 Share Posted 10 May , 2015 Andy, So nice that it will not be trashed and lost ! Regards, LF Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
keithmroberts Posted 10 May , 2015 Share Posted 10 May , 2015 That's great news Andy. A real piece of local history will surely be saved for posterity now. It's worth send a couple of decent protographs to War memorials Online as well. Keith Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
seaforths Posted 10 May , 2015 Share Posted 10 May , 2015 Brilliant news and lucky too. Dread to think what might've become of it if someone hadn't reported it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rum Ration Posted 10 May , 2015 Share Posted 10 May , 2015 A great rescue Andy! Please let us know which museum it goes too. Thank you. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andy Wade Posted 10 May , 2015 Author Share Posted 10 May , 2015 I was thinking of selling it on eBay, what do you think, will I get a good price for it? Seriously though, I'll be talking to Keighley's Cliffe Castle Museum tomorrow morning: http://www.bradfordmuseums.org/venues/cliffe-castle-museum They already have on display the stained glass windows that go with this memorial and also have nine other Keighley war memorials (some are very similar to this one) so it is fitting that it should go there. Problem is that they have had all of these memorials in bubble wrap in their storage warehouse for over thirty years in some cases, so they might not see the light of day again. But at least they are safe. We are looking to change that and find them all a permanent home, but talks are slow at the moment. We haven't had a 'no' yet, so we're hopeful that we'll succeed. Certainly the museum coordinators are quite open about supporting this, it's a source of frustration to them that the items in their collection can't all be displayed, there are only so many suitable buildings available and strict criteria are applied to make sure items are safely looked after when they're out on loan. I support this even though it makes it difficult to progress. We're hopeful that we have a home lined up, but its a slow process. Keith, I've been taking some decent pictures this afternoon and will be contacting the War Memorials Trust/War Memorials Online people this week. Cheers. Thanks very much everyone, for all the messages of support. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ph0ebus Posted 10 May , 2015 Share Posted 10 May , 2015 Wonderful result, and here's hoping it finds a good home. Daniel Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Verrico2009 Posted 10 May , 2015 Share Posted 10 May , 2015 Great work. Well done, Andy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kitchener's Bugle Posted 10 May , 2015 Share Posted 10 May , 2015 Its in great shape Andy..............the level of ignorance baffles me sometimes................ Congratulations on saving it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andy Wade Posted 11 May , 2015 Author Share Posted 11 May , 2015 Cheers Louise! Yes KB, but I balance that against the fact that someone has cared for this since 1974 when the chapel closed down. It's been sat in an attic I think, because of the dust that was on it. There's no sign of mould and the houses don't have cellars anyway so it's definitely been kept dry. How they got it up in the attic I'll never know, these are small terraces and I can't imagine it being kept in their front room or a bedroom, it would take up too much space. Thanks for your comments. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bill24chev Posted 11 May , 2015 Share Posted 11 May , 2015 It's even got the name of the carpenter who made it on the back, written in what looks like a blue wax carpenters pencil, along with an instruction to create a 1/4 rebate for the moulding that holds the main panel in place. We think he was Norman Albert Ellison of 'Lees', which is a small village nearby. I'm currently checking for his history and I think I've found a candidate, Norman Ellison is on the 1911 census for Haworth (less than a mile from Lees) but he's still an 11 year old schoolboy, although he would have been 21 or 22 years old when the memorial was created in August September 1921, so he could easily have completed an apprenticeship by then as he could have left school at 14 years of age. I was going to ask how you managed to pick it up believing it was made from stone Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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