war memorials

[john w.]

As some may have read in other threads... I am researching the men who fell and are listed on my village war memorial. As I research them a question has reared its head, what was the qualification to have your name put on that particular memorial. Yes I know it sounds silly but, some of the men were born in the village and moved away as they were married, others moved into the village and so on.

Is it just simply if they lived in the village for a year? Just wondered as they didnt seem to join the local regt. In fact I have one who was buried in Shropshire!

Can anyone point me in the right direction

John

[Chris]

John. Having done a similair project on my local memorial i found myself asking a similair question. Like you i found some men lived in the village, others had lived/been born there and then moved away, whilst others only worked in the village and had never lived there. Yet other soldiers who died and had lived in the village are not listed on the memorial. The elderly residents of the village when i asked them why, seemed to think that when the memorial was in the fund raising/ construction stage, it was up to the relatives of those who had fallen to put their relatives names forward for inclusion; hence the reason why some were not included (the families subsequentluy moving from the village), and the variety of differences in connection that those listed had. I dont know whether this is a general rule but may help you.

Chris

[HERITAGE PLUS]

Chris

There appears to have been no set criteria.

The memorials I have researched have in included men who left the village/town to go to war who were either natives or connected to the place through employment or sport or politics. Some who were born in the village but moved away (including those who had emigrated) have been included (and also commorated on the memorial where they live).

For these memorials an advert was placed in the local press asking relatives to put forward the names of there loved ones who had been lost. If this was not done or there were no relatives in the village/town a man would not necessarily be commemorated on the memorial.

Dave

[Malcolm]

Exactly why I asked about Lt Peter McCaig RFC who was from Wigton but is on the Local Memorial at Juniper Green, Edinburgh. Probably because he was a member of the Juniper Green Church. The list of names was put together by a committee of local people but from SDITGW there are 22 missing! Well they were missing but are in the recently published details.

Aye

Malcolm

[Greenwoodman]

I don't think there is a general set of criteria. Each memorial committee perhaps started out with an idea to "erect a memorial to the dead of the parish, village, school etc.". Parish generally indicates a connection with the CoE parish. How did committee members with CoE connections obtain names of Methodist casualties, or those born in the parish and moved away to the other end of the country? It often depended upon the industry and enthusiasm of the committee members - their contacts, adverts in the local papers, perhaps using the parish registers for those born in the parish. And what about those parents or widows who took up residence in the village after the death (church-goers or not) - could the committee deny these people the right to put their relatives name on the memorial, to allow them to use the memorial as a surrogate grave?

It must have been a total minefield once criteria were set!! But most of the memorials I've researched around Sandbach have names missing, names of "new" residents' dead commemorated, one or two names who have been most difficult to track down. A school memorial here has a name missing, but also has the name of a survivor engraved upon it!

So qualification - yes I guess you could say that (usually) someone has died in a way connected to the war. After that, it was usually necessary for someone to nominate the casualty, someone who thought it important to commemorate that person on that memorial. And then the committee might or might not have had a say!!

And those names that are missing from the memorials? A difficult question which has been discussed on the forum before. Without knowing the original reason for missing them off the memorial in the first place, imho, they shouldn't be added without the family's agreement. But they should be commemorated in the kind of research you, me and many others are carrying out, to reside in the book roll of honour or website subsequently produced.

PS thanks for your good wishes, John!

[john w.]

Cheers for that everyone... will look for parish council records to see if it was they who set up the criteria..

John

no probs greenwoodman

[Terry Denham]

All the above responses are absolutely correct. There were no overall criteria. Each committee made up its own rules.

We have, on our village memorial, one chap whose qualification seems to be that he was a chum of the local squire and visited the village on many weekends!

This has been discussed several times on the Forum along with the rights & wrongs of adding names. A search should find the threads.

When talking about 'parishes', do not get confused between the ecclesiastical parish (as in the Vicar of Dibley!) and the civil parish. Their geographical areas often coincide but not always. Some memorials were erected by the Parochial Church Council and others by the Parish Council (the bottom level of local government in the UK). The two types of parish used to be one but the secular duties were separated from the religious duties just over a hundred years ago.

As Chairman of a parish council, I have to keep explaining that we are nothing to do with the church!

[Bob Coulson]

I am currently researching my third local memorial and one man is on all three.

Bob.

[kinnethmont]

I have to agree with Terry's response. Matters regarding church involvement was different in Scotland.

I have for some years researched my own and neighbouring rural parishes in Aberdeenshire and can advise that a pattern exists whereby the men named were either born in or lived in or had their family home there at their death. This is true of a number who served with the Canadians having enlisted there as single men.

Check out the epitaph the War Memorial Committee left behind them, the text on the memorial. This usually assists in defining the criteria used.

War Memorial Committees were formed by local people who were well aware of who left the town or village never to return. Once their work was done, any surplus funds were usually dispersed among the casualties families and the Committee disbanded, duty done.

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.

[MartinWills]

I think that the golden rule is that there were no hard and fast rules. Some men appear on several memorials because they had connections with more than one place and it seems in general that the criteria were to have some sort of connection, however tenuous.

You may have thought that another criteria was that the individual had died. I have come across the odd survivor who has a name on a memorial yet did not die until the 1950's or later. I think in many cases it was the word of the family or friends that dictated a names inclusion.

I guess we should also remember that there were occasions when a family decided that a name should NOT go onto a memorial and it this day and age when we are keen to see omissions made good we might also consider the original wishes of the families.

Martin

[john w.]

sounds like a bit of a nightmare glad I asked..

John