MEMORIAL

[R Williams]

https://www.greatwarforum.org/topic/156720-war-memorial-for-sale-on-e-bay/

The above link relates to a memorial which was discussed on your forum several years ago, which we bought on ebay with the intention of rescuing it from what might have been a sale for scrap, although I don't think that was in fact the seller's intention. Any way we bought it and I am now trying to find a final home for it. As your members were instrumental in the initial research I thought it only fair to canvass your thoughts on how best to proceed. It has taken a while because life gets in the way, we have moved house etc, but we have tried a couple of avenues, both discussed in the above.

My preferred option has always been to return it to EY as the successor firm in order to preserve the memorial's integrity as a workplace memorial. The individuals no doubt served in a variety of units so giving it to one of those would be a partial solution in which only one of the names would be relevant to that unit. Accordingly we have written to EY on, I think, four occasions. They have an office in the City and it would seem highly appropriate to display it there with an explanatory panel and, as a good news, human interest story with the possibility of some press interest I thought they would have jumped at it - these big accountancy firms need all the good publicity they can get.

However, not even the courtesy of a reply.

While on holiday in the area we dropped in on the Green Howard's Museum, who knew about the officer and who would be happy to take it. (They also wrote to EY, with the same lack of result). Giving it to them would be my default position - whether they would display it or not I don't know but it would at least be looked after, but that would be the partial solution mentioned above

I imagine there were lots of workplace memorials in the post war years but how many survived the closure of firms, loss of buildings etc who knows. I doubt many of them were made of solid copper either. The other feature is that, unlike many of the WW1 memorials we are all familiar with, it commemorates all who served, not "just" those who were killed. I hesitate to say these two features make it unique, but I do think they make it worth trying to preserve its integrity as a workplace memorial in some way

The only avenue we haven't pursued is the Institute of Chartered Accountants - either to take it themselves or put pressure on EY, although to be honest I would not trust EY to look after it in the long term even if they did anything with it now, given their lack of interest so far.

I would appreciate any thoughts. We would making it as a donation and would meet any costs involved in doing so

 

 

 

[keithmroberts]

Thank you for your action, and your perseverance. I would just hand the item to the Green Howards Museum. It might not be displayed,  certainly that is a risk, but it would always be respected.