Grave Registration reports and Panel list. Unusual?

[Skipman]

I was looking at a 2nd Black Watch casualty from 6th? February 1915, private 20 Forbes Shirran. I notice on CWGC that he is commemorated on Le Touret Memorial and is named on the Panel List. He also has Grave Registration documents. Don't think have seen that before. Is it unusual?

https://www.cwgc.org/find-records/find-war-dead/casualty-details/262130/forbes-shirran/

 

Mike

 

[Michelle Young]

I have seen it a few times, recently, as looking at casualties from the retreat from Mons. I have the cemetery registers for La Ferte sous Jouarre memorial, and quite a few entries say now known to be buried in. I guess they were trying to collate lists of the missing to go in memorials for some years, and on cross checking, found the man to have a grave, , or even in some cases I’ve seen, to be alive. 
Also, around Mons, a lot of the casualties from communal cemeteries have been concentrated into Cement House, but in one case, not all the remains from a cemetery, they moved say three and left one. Very odd. 

[jay dubaya]

Often seen where a soldier’s grave marker is recovered without remains and placed in a cemetery memorial plot, but that is not the case here as he clearly has a headstone in the cemetery. Could it be that his name has not been struck off the memorial list? It would be good to know if his name appears on the memorial.

(Image courtesy of Find a Grave)

Edited 27 February , 2022 by jay dubaya

[AOK4]

5 minutes ago, Michelle Young said:

Also, around Mons, a lot of the casualties from communal cemeteries have been concentrated into Cement House, but in one case, not all the remains from a cemetery, they moved say three and left one. Very odd. 

I would say there's usually reasons behind this often involving the accompanying German graves (often joint graves) in those cemeteries. In some cases, new civilian graves were made above the military graves (British and German) after the war (as locals assumed they were all German graves), leaving "known to be buried in this cemetery" stones behind. Knowledge of the situation during the German occupation is key to understanding what and why (and unfortunately, knowledge about this is very difficult to acquire as most of the archival sources are gone and neither the Volksbund nor the CWGC really understand all this).

[Jim Strawbridge]

I would like to point out that the font on Shirran's headstone is not the usual font found on CWGC headstones. I recall a visit to a mason who helped make CWGC headstones and he informed me that the CWGC was particular about the font, which I think was specifically designed for them. Also the angle of the cut was quite specific and he had blue prints to hand that confirmed all of this. Shirran's has flourishes on the numbers and the letters are not bold but have "tails". I am sure that this one will not be unique but it is unusual.

[jay dubaya]

13 minutes ago, Jim Strawbridge said:

I would like to point out that the font on Shirran's headstone is not the usual font found on CWGC headstones. I recall a visit to a mason who helped make CWGC headstones and he informed me that the CWGC was particular about the font, which I think was specifically designed for them. Also the angle of the cut was quite specific and he had blue prints to hand that confirmed all of this. Shirran's has flourishes on the numbers and the letters are not bold but have "tails". I am sure that this one will not be unique but it is unusual.

Good spot Jim, I also read Black Walch on the badge. I’ve looked at some of the neighbouring headstones both of which have the same font, however I’ve also looked at those headstones in Plot 1 which do have a cleaner font as normally seen on CWGC headstones. The original contract was carried out by Messers A Burslem and Sons of Tunbridge Wells and one wonders if these alternative font headstones replaced damaged headstones at some point. 

[TEW]

Is the surname spelling on the panel list different enough to make someone at sometime to think there were two different men?

TEW

[tootrock]

A search through the 13,479 names on the Le Touret Memorial does not come up with either Shirran or Sherran.

Martin

Edited 27 February , 2022 by tootrock

[jay dubaya]

The Memorial panel list was typed up on 6th March 1928 and since his name doesn’t appear on the memorial I can only suggest his name was added in error. The headstone contact post dates   the panel list by over 12 months - a note contained on the schedule explains the original was destroyed whilst in use 29th June 1929.

[Skipman]

Thank you all for looking at this. Very interesting.

 

Mike

[Skipman]

4 hours ago, tootrock said:

A search through the 13,479 names on the Le Touret Memorial does not come up with either Shirran or Sherran.

Martin

 

Where would I find this list Martin?

 

Mike

[jay dubaya]

The official list is here Mike

[Skipman]

Excellent, thanks Jon.

 

Mike

[MelPack]

Mike, this is a similar type of case I came across a couple of years ago:

Pte William Connor L/12253 Ist Btn Royal Fusiliers KIA: 14 Aug 1915 was commemorated on the Menin Gate

CONNOR_WILLIAM Menin Gate.pdf

I discovered, however, that he was actually buried in Poperinghe New Military Cemetery but as William Conner:

https://www.cwgc.org/find-records/find-war-dead/casualty-details/139130/william-joseph-edward-conner/

The CWGC removed the Menin Gate commemoration from the online database but his name will obviously continue to be retained on the Gate until the panel is eventually replaced.

The duplication was clearly caused by a simple transcription error but the odd thing is that the original GRU report had the surname recorded as Connor.

I suspect that there may be other such instances.

[Skipman]

Thanks MelPack. Interesting.

 

Mike