War Memorials

[Clive Maier]

When I first looked at my hometown memorial, I found a missing soldier almost immediately. It was a fluke. He was in the same cemetery as my uncle Oscar and at the top of page one in the register at that. I was excited and imagined I had found something rare and astounding. I saw myself setting right ancient wrongs and placing his name on the memorial. Now I just don’t know …..

The war memorials movement that followed the First World War was not centrally directed and had no rules. It was essentially a local effort that was repeated nationally. It was centred on the community, and the communities defined themselves – village, town, suburb, city, parish, company, regiment, school, street, club. I believe people were included on a memorial if they were held in some general way to be of the community. That could mean born there or raised there or living there or next of kin there. It could be more tenuous. One who was none of these things might still be thought of as one of ours through local connections – the football team, a concert party, a school, marriage or engagement to a local person. The possibilities are almost endless. I sense that war memorial committees were satisfied that they knew what they meant by ‘of the community’ and rarely if ever codified the idea into hard and fast rules. I have found no evidence of rules for my hometown memorial and I don’t recall offhand of any evidence of inclusion rules being mentioned in books on memorialisation. For my ‘own’ memorial, things were just as hit and miss after the Second World War.

It seems to me that the ‘of the community’ criterion would have worked quite well in small and closed communities and less well in larger more open ones. So company, school, club and regimental memorials are likely to have few omissions. Village memorials should be reasonably good while suburban memorials might be expected to have the most omissions because the regional concept is more fuzzy than a town or city. Of course, the ‘of the community’ test might well fail those who were not in some way in touch either with the worthies who sat on memorial committees or with the local bodies they might consult. People who by inclination or social standing were on the margins of the community might well be overlooked. So too might people who had no one local remaining to speak for them by the time memorialisation came around.

I know now of course, that it is commonplace to find people who apparently should be on a memorial but are not. This is a product of the digital age. Now we can search through hundreds of thousands of records for a place name in seconds; in the past it was effectively impossible. For my hometown memorial, the process has yielded 79 new names from both wars. This for a memorial that carries 251 names. There is much work still to be done but as this stage it looks as if I can make a reasonable case for 41 of these. The number seems ridiculously high. I simply can’t visualise so many being omitted by accident and design put together. It shows that we have to be very careful in interpreting records that were made an appreciable time after death. Only when a watertight case can made, should we think about adding a name to the memorial.

It is sometimes said that we should be doubly careful in case the next of kin had refused commemoration. This must have happened but I just can’t imagine it being a widespread practice. In any case, not even that is definitive. We will never know now what the fallen would have preferred. My guess is that almost every last one would have liked to be remembered.

So should names be added? I still don’t know. Yes, because the fallen almost certainly would have wished it. No, because eighty-odd years on, we are taking a lot on ourselves in trying to reinvent rules that never existed. Maybe, if a watertight case can be made. But what if the watertight case is already on another memorial?

Perhaps the best way is to regard the war memorial as an historical document. We may disprove it but we may not amend it. We simply record our conclusions elsewhere. Maybe this is the answer. We are the first people in history who can publish worldwide, without professional help and for next to nothing. Most people who research a memorial thoroughly will eventually publish the findings as a web site and in this way the lost names are recovered and perpetuated. This is particularly effective when the web content can so easily be recast as a CD and hardcopy that can be lodged in local libraries.

[Terry Denham]

This is the sort of discussion that will go around in circles as there is no right or wrong answer. We must all just respect each other's opinion.

I just remember the effect that our having new names added to our own war memorial had in 2001. We had seven WW1 names added - all of whom no longer had any local connections - and one WW2 name.

The WW2 name had been refused permission by the then local vicar to be added to the memorial with all the other WW2 names in 1946 - because he lived a hundred yards (literally - the house is still there) outside the parish boundary. All this despite the fact that he had spent his entire life in our village and was a leading light in the community. He died in action in Athens in 1945.

I, as Chairman of the current Parish Council - now guardians of the memorial -took the decision to have him added and the Council was in full agreement.

At the first Remembrance Day service (held around the memorial) following the additions, the man's widow and daughter arrived unexpectedly although they no longer live in the area. The widow was in tears and so grateful that we had righted a wrong of many years standing. She and her daughter have attended each Rememberance Day since and laid a very personal wreath.

Just one story.

I'll keep quiet on the subject now!

[Clive Maier]

Terry Denham’s comment is very interesting. I had just suggested that we should not reinvent rules that never existed. His illustration is the exact opposite; an existing rule is overturned. I am not saying it was a good rule. It definitely was not.

I am very surprised that a village memorial should have been defined by parish rather than community. I am even more surprised that the vicar - a minority leader – had powers of veto. I wonder how often this happened?

[Northern Soul]

I have been researching my local memorials for some 10 years now and obviously have identified several individuals who, on the face of it, should be commemorated but aren't. However, I have never been tempted to correct the omissions because for whatever reason, their families chose not to have them commemorated and it ill behoves me, 80-odd years on, to query that decision or to attempt to reverse it; they are officially commemorated by the CWGC and I leave it at that.

Two examples:

I know of one instance where a man was deliberately not commemorated on my hometown war memorial because his wife refused to believe that his submarine was lost and that one day he would return. Putting his name on the memorial would be admitting that all hope had gone. Her daughter informed me that she maintained that stance up to her death.

One of my work colleagues has told how his grandparents always refused to allow their back door to be locked............"in case our Bob lands home and there is no-one to let him in." This was still happening several decades after Bob had gone missing in 1918.

Each to his own....but it's not an area I'll dabble in.

Andy.

[Clive Maier]

I was touched by what Northern Soul had to say. I am afraid I had overlooked clinging to hope as a motive for non-commemoration. This forum is such a help in getting a more complete picture than one could ever manage alone.

If clinging to hope was a significant cause of non-commemoration, we should find that a high proportion of the apparently omitted have no known grave. It does not work out that way for ‘my’ memorial. Almost exactly a third of those on the memorial have no known grave but the proportion for the ‘candidates’ goes down to almost exactly a quarter – significantly less instead of more. Not conclusive I know, but I am still inclined to think that deliberate non-commemoration could only have accounted for a relatively small proportion of the apparently omitted.

[chris basey]

The many comments and controversial aspects really highlight what an important job many are doing in researching ALL local men who fell (in both wars) regardless of whether, or where, they are commemorated.

I believe that well researched biographies are becoming central to remembrance PROVIDED that the material is made available to the general public in churches, libraries, record offices, museums, etc.

We can also provide what we believe to be a full list of those local men to the vicar, RBL, or whoever may be responsible for the names being read on Armistice Sunday. We would also be in a unique position to give details of regiment, date and place of death that would remove much of the anonynimity of the customary lists of initial and surname.

[ianw]

I think Terry's decision to add the man denied his place on the memorial by a few hundred yards and a pedantic vicar was certainly correct.

Regarding the "ownership" of memorials, since we are the inheritors of the "Obligation of Remembrance", I feel we also inherit our local memorials, the duty to maintain them and the right to correct errors and omissions where appropriate after very careful consideration.

[Guest Simon Bull]

I think there might be one circumstance in which it would clearly be right to seek to add names to a war memorial, namely when the motive for not putting the name(s) on in the first place was clearly improper. Eg the deceased was not on the War Memorial because of a local dispute; because he was black; because he was Irish; because he was gay; etc.

There would obviously be shades of grey in this situation, (eg if the deceased had committed a crime), but in principle it would seem to me that if those who denied commemoration did it for improper reasons we should act to correct that.

That said (save arguably in the case of those Shot at Dawn) I know of no actual examples of this happening.

Simon Bull

[kinnethmont]

I am aware of a case where a man was killed in an vehicle accident while seving with occupation forces in Germany in 1947. Even though he died within the qualifying period and therefor has a CWGC grave his father did not wish his name added to the village war memorial which was unveiled with only the dates 1939 -1945 on it. Clearly it would be wrong to add his name now!

On my own parish memorial a WW1 man is named who was awarded the Military Medal. He was the only one of the fallen to be decorated. Often decorations were listed, but why not here!

It is likely that his family did not wish to create a distinction between the casualties and the MM was left off. Thus all were equal in death. Sometimes men are listed as, name only, without rank for the same reason.

Without doubt those best placed to judge the matter in regard to adding WW1 casualties carried out their task, all facts considered, when the memorial was erected, usually by Public Subscription.

Unless it can be proved, beyond doubt, that a genuine mistake was made, it should be left as it is. We should not try to re-write history 80 years after the event.