Jump to content
Free downloads from TNA ×
The Great War (1914-1918) Forum

Remembered Today:

THIEPVAL dead, most PALS have one


Muerrisch

Recommended Posts

The Thiepval Charity site [and I have nothing against the project, at least there will be another decent lavatory in the area] makes this claim:

"........ and the names of 72,000 British soldiers carved into the stone of this massive memorial, designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens ......... tragically, most of us have a direct family connection with at least one of these names".

How on earth do they substantiate that statement? If "most of us" is taken as a bare majority, say 30 000 000 of us Brits, we are looking at about 400 relationships per dead soldier. Almost all of the dead soldiers relatives living at time of his death will also be dead by now.

Given that, say half the men were single/childless, thats a lot of relationships that didn't get round to happening. Also, a large number of the affected 30 000 000 ["us"] are now immingrants or second or third generation immigrants, some of whom will, of course, have loved ones commemorated.

Here's a question for all Pals, please. Do you have a known family connection name on the memorial, and, if so, what relationship? [merely same name doesn't count, please]. Pals, of all people, could be expected to take an interest and know the score.

Not only do I not have one, my wife does not, my brother in law and his wife do not ........ and only one person of the many groups of friends I minibus around the area has ever laid claim. So, how about it, please?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The only connection I have with any name on the monument is that I have the medals of 8654 Pte Walter Hilton, XVI Platoon, D Company, 17th Manchester Regiment, KIA 1/7/16.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Lee, I appreciate the timely attachment. God bless America.

May I add an addendum to my starting posting?

Case in point. If my grandfather had died [he was Driver ASC at Somme battles], how many relatives would be around now? He was not an only child, but his siblings were not at all productive, he was the fecund one. His wife dead. Likewise both his sons, childless anyway. Three surviving children of his, all without surviving children. My mother, his other daughter, dead, but leaving me and my sister the only ones of the next generation. So that's 2. [plus Grandpa's siblings' unknown descendants .... not many as I understand it]

I have 4 grown-up children, and they have 6 between them.

So, forgetting in-laws, and the few unknowns, that makes 12.

Someone is going to have to take up a lot of slack if my family is anything to go by, we need to average 400 each according to my calculation!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I don't have anyone - to my current knowledge; however, it was only serendipity that led me to a family member on the Arras Memorial. Trawling some local papers on behalf on someone living on the other side of the county, I came across Charles Lambert of the 13 Middlesex, who (unbeknown to me) was my grandmother's sister's first husband. Oh, that they had been alive to tell me more.

More amazingly for me is that, having started researching Major Blair Swannell (see my signature below), I was recently presented with that same strand (maternal grandmother's) of my family tree, going back to the mid-1500s. Included were a whole succession of Swannell's, showing me as distantly related to the man I am already pursuing.

So, while I started with a bare negative assertion, I know quite well how so many of us link up as we retreat through the generations.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I have a near miss.

My Uncle Oscar was killed during fighting in Delville Wood. Nearly all the 75 men of his battalion who went down with him are on the Thiepval Memorial. The ebb and flow of fighting in the wood was such that recovery and burial was nigh impossible, and bodies and graves remaining in the wood were obliterated by shellfire. I conjecture that Oscar was gravely injured and either died or was killed on the short journey to Mametz where he lies today in Dantzig Alley Cemetery.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

My uncle:

6244 Pte. Samuel Bluestein, 1st Bn. London Regt (Royal Fusiliers) Killed 15/09/1916, Age 28. Name found on Pier and Face 9 D and 16 B THIEPVAL MEMORIAL.

Though the death of my uncle was obviously a terrible event in my families history; it became overshadowed by the events in Europe, 1933 approx. to 1945. It was then that the majority of my family living in places like Poland and Hungary all but disappeared in what we refer today as the Holocaust. Primarily my mothers family, her parents were the only two to survive, finding each other by accident after the war, each thinking the other was dead.

Sorry to go off on a tangent. This day, Sept. 11 brings us to a very emotional place (especially here in North America).

Link to comment
Share on other sites

To the best of my knowledge I have no relative amongst the 72,000

Further, Langley's proposition also reminded me of some lines of Rupert Brooke's

which too might be said to support this theory

"These laid the world away; poured out the red

Sweet wine of youth; gave up the years to be

Of work and joy, and that unhoped serene,

That men call age; and those who would have been,

Their sons, they gave, their immortality."

Michael D.R.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

"How on earth do they substantiate that statement?"

It is called poetic licence. As a ststement it is designed to impress, not express.

I suggest that it was not designed to be analysed by a razor sharp mind.

Yes on this day, "GOD BLESS AMERICA"

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I have two on the THIEPVAL memorial.

Pte. William, Mellor of Stockport, 14480, 11/Ches., K. in A. 3/7/16; was my Gran's cousin. Gran as a photo of him, he was a very good looking chap.

Pte. Harold, Hewitt of Stockport, 2293, 1/6/Ches., K. in A. 14/10/16; was my Gran's Uncle.

Annette

Link to comment
Share on other sites

No family connection at all and neither has my husband.

My maternal family ancestors were all farmers, with far more females than male in each family, as the parents on each farm tended to reproduce until a son was achieved and then stopped. Apparently, therefore, most of the males did not join the army, but stayed at home to work on the farm.

I think it’s interesting to deconstruct the claim, but had the writers used ‘many’ instead of ‘most’, the statement might have been less open to debate.

Gwyn

Link to comment
Share on other sites

It depends how rigidly you define 'family connection'. If you count cousins the numbers soon pile up. I remember a rather snooty club being formed of 'cousins of Margaret Thatcher'. Somebody pointed out that the club's specification of 'cousin' would allow around 100,000 people to apply! I have quite a close connection-my great-uncle Cyril Evans, whose photo appears as my 'avatar', is commemorated on Thiepval.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

While the claim by the Thiepval Memorial project may be classed as wishful thinking, I feel that the question might be answered more positively by those who have arrived at the forum via family history, and who regard the question of ‘family’ in rather broader terms. For many of us it was our great grandparent’s generation who lost their sons during the war, and we each have/had eight of those. When you start to consider the number of siblings, cousins, and nephews that each of our great grandparents had, and then trace their descendants, the numbers can become enormous. I have thousand of names on my family tree, and have two men whose names appear on the Thiepval Memorial who I ‘lay claim’ to – my grandmother’s brother [close link], and his cousin [not so close] – there are many more who died in the Great war and are commemorated elsewhere. So while I agree that relatively few people will have a direct descendant on the memorial [i.e. grandfather, great grandfather], there must be many who have no knowledge of family members named there because they have never done a great deal of family history research – and quite honestly, it’s not everybody’s cup of tea. But I would bet there are a few forum members in the ‘no’ camp who are, in fact, ‘yes’ men [and women!].

John James Cox [served as Charles Frederick Cox]

9th Battalion Royal Fusiliers

Killed in Action 7th July 1916

Alexander Hildersley MM

14th Battalion Royal Irish Rifles

Killed in Action 1st July 1916

Regards - Sue

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Pte Douglas Sainty, 1/15 Londons (Civil Service Rifles), killed in the attack on the Butte de Warlencourt, 7th October 1916. One of my grandmother's cousins, whose stories I grew up on as a kid...

My own personnel comment, rather than every family having a connection with the memorial, is that it reads like an A-Z of English surnames on the period, and there must be few people who do not find their surname listed on it, if they visit. In many years of coach groups I have - luckily! - yet to be proved wrong on that one... and I've had some clients with unusual names!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guest Ian Bowbrick
My own personnel comment, rather than every family having a connection with the memorial, is that it reads like an A-Z of English surnames on the period, and there must be few people who do not find their surname listed on it, if they visit. In many years of coach groups I have - luckily! - yet to be proved wrong on that one... and I've had some clients with unusual names!

You won't find mine!

Although there are 12 of my name with medal index cards and all related.

But it is a very valid point. There can very few communities where a resident is not mentioned. Interestingly when the 1901 census came out, I ran my address through the system and found out, with a bit of digging, that a previous owner had lost a son on the Somme. So I suppose it can touch us all one way or another.

Regards - Ian

Link to comment
Share on other sites

As far as I know I have no direct family connection, but my wife's great uncle is on it. I did some research for her family and visited Thiepval last summer. Does that count?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

No relatives at all on the Thiepval Memorial.

Can anyone match this? I know of no relatives who were killed or even fought in WW1. (My grandfathers were in reserved occupations.)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I sort of have one - an almost relative. My grandmothers first fiancee, Capt Francis Dodgson, 8 Yorkshires (Green Howards) is on the GH panel.

However, he does not appear on the Thiepval register because he is in fact buried at Serre Rd number 2 Cem. He was at first reported missing, and his body wasnt gathered into Serre until I believe c. 1921. I guess that the paperwork did not catch up with the building of Thiepval.

Because he was killed on 10 July 1916 a few weeks before they were due to marry, my grandmother in fact ended up meeting and marrying my grandfather in 1917. If Dodgson had survived the war I would not have been born. Dodgson's nephew refers to my father as his 'near miss cousin'.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

If Dodgson had survived the war I would not have been born.

You sound rather nihilistic Charles. Surely you would have been born, but bearing the name Dodgson.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The only connection I have with any name on the monument is that I have the medals of 8654 Pte Walter Hilton, XVI Platoon, D Company, 17th Manchester Regiment, KIA 1/7/16.

Lee

Have you checked out if you have any connection with Fred Farmer from Mid Wales, yet, as he's on the Thiepval Memorial ?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The only connection I have with any name on the monument is that I have the medals of 8654 Pte Walter Hilton, XVI Platoon, D Company, 17th Manchester Regiment, KIA 1/7/16.

Lee,

I would venture to say at least 60% of my collection is commemorated on a memorial somewhere. Its sobering to think how many were lost on the battlefields of the world.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

No relatives at all on the Thiepval Memorial.

Can anyone match this?

Alan.

"Snap!". Though quite a few family members fought (one "going over" on 1st July) not a single one of them was killed (or even wounded). In fact in my family history (which reads like one of the Lancashire Regiment's battle honours!), travelling back to between 1856 and 1991, the only casualty was my Grandfather who was wounded near Arras in 1940.

Must have lucky blood! :D

dave.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hi,

I have a great,great uncle on the memorial at Thiepval.

Pte.Thomas Arrowsmith.

11th Royal Fusiliers.

Kia 17/2/17.

There may also be another which I'm looking into at the moment.

Stu

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Paul,

Brian and I would break your record i'm afraid.

Neither of us have relatives on Thiepval, nor are our surnames listed, Talmer for Brian and Pattie (my maiden name) for me. Howvever if we go back to our mothers' maiden names Burgin and Musker there is one example of each on the memorial (not related to us) - would this count to keep your record unbroken?

Regards

Lesley

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...