How many 'extras' have you found

[AndyJohnson]

I started my Tipton researches after I had been photographing the Tipton WW1 Plaque and an elderly gent told me there were over a hundred names missing including his older brother. He wouldn't tell me who either he or his brother were "for me to know and you to find out". I imagine this gentleman has now passed on, but he underestimated the numbers. I'm now sure I have his brother's name - but which one of the uncommemorated he is - well who knows. I do know that this has now cost me a lot of money and time!

The plaque has 375 names, but I now have 916 names.

As well as the usual born here and moved away (and v.v.) which number hundreds, I have a geographic problem. Tipton consists of 5 'towns within the town', and for a couple of these 'townlets' they can also be over the boundary in West Bromwich. SDGW can say born and resident Great Bridge - this could be Gt Bridge Tipton or Gt Bridge West Bromwich. From that 'bare' information I can't be sure so I err on the side of recording the name. There may well be 50 names which I have found which aren't really Tipton but I'm not going to remove them unless I'm 100% sure.

There are 35 WW1 CWGC graves in Tipton Cemetery - I had never previously looked at the numbers commemorated - fascinating! Only 8 of the 35 are on the Memorial. About a dozen of these died 1919/1920 so may have missed the cut-off, but one was a "Mons Hero" who was invalided out, re-volunteered and died from malaria after serving in Egypt. This was a military funeral and widely reported so why he wasn't recorded, well who knows!

I have no positive evidence but I do wonder if some were unrecorded because their widow had re-married and it may have been difficult to get involved in the memorial process?

Andy

[lionboxer]

Reading through the posts there seems to be a feeling that us researchers are interferring with families wishes. Well I can tell you that our experiences are completely different. If you have read the kind letters we've recieved, seen the tears of emotion and gratitude on the faces of the families as we have you would be in no doubt of the rightfulness of our research. (I keep saying "us" when I mean myself and another researcher under the auspices of the local history group)

The decision to add or indeed not add some names was taken democratically by the Parish Council who own the memorial and the Parochial Church Council on whose land the memorial stands. We submitted all the available evidence in a printed document and this was voted on. When we started this project we could find no set criteria for addition to the memorial, so we set out our own criteria which was probably more stringent than the original. Roughly they were 1 Were either or both parents born here? 2 Did members of his family live or work here? 3 Was he born here, did he live here or work here? We actually found nineteen candidates but two had credentials that were tenuous (married in the church but no other links as far as we could find). The other was a cast iron candidate who was baptised here, went to school here and had part of their farm in the parish, BUT the existing family regarded themselves as coming from a neighbouring parish and declined our offer to add him to the memorial. (Rather sadly this lad is only commemorated on his mothers gravestone and not on a proper memorial). Some men are on other local memorials too but their connection with our village merits their place here as well. We still have two men from WW2 that we can find absolutely nothing other than their names which are in the book of remembrance in Norwich Cathedral as coming from Bergh Apton.

We've not tried to change the past but brought things up to date so that future generations will know where some of their family roots and ties are, which are very important to a small rural village.

Lionboxer

[Andrew Hesketh]

Reading through the posts there seems to be a feeling that us researchers are interferring with families wishes. ... If you have read the kind letters we've recieved, seen the tears of emotion and gratitude on the faces of the families as we have you would be in no doubt of the rightfulness of our research.

The decision to add or indeed not add some names was taken democratically by the Parish Council ...

Apologies if it seems as though I'm suggesting that researchers are interfering with families wishes. I'm one of 'us researchers' and, like you, I have been gratified by reuniting present day families with their grandparents, great-uncles. I've no issue with that. In fact, for one family, I am in the middle of a bid to get an ancestor recognised by the CWGC.

My beef is that present day families should not be the arbiter of whether a war memorial is altered. Whatever the reasons for the original decisions, even when they seem blatantly wrong to us, I do not feel that we have the right to alter them. The fact that a council decides democratically does not, to my mind, seem to alter the fact that we are likley to be trampling on deeply emotional original decisions.

Allow me one example: a chap born, raised, lived and worked in the village, who volunteered, who died of the results of gas poisoning (according to his death certificate), but in civilian clothes following his demobilisation with an SWB, whose family returned his medals and wanted nothing to do with any form of commemoration. Hence no name on the war memorial. Why? He should be there shouldn't he? Were the family bitter? Were they uncaring? I'll never know. Do I, or a council, have the right, to overrule them?

[John84]

Through our own research on our village war dead for our new memorial, we have found some very interesting facts, and like yourself we have found a few lads that where from our village and are not commemorated on our original memorial. But here we have been very lucky, for we have also traced the original documentation relating to the names put forward to go on memorial. Also on the original documentation (including letters) given to the then War Memorial Committee are some lads names put forward by their next of kin as to why they did not want their loved ones names placed on the memorial.

One woman gave her reason as to not having her husband put on, she whished to remember him in her own way and that his name was not needed to be carved on a wooden panel, as it was forever carved on her heart. Further research found the old lady died in her 91st year....she never re-married. So we feel that no way can we act against her wishes and place his name on the new memorial; but his name will be mentioned in an accompanying book about the village war dead.

There are a couple more similar cases to this and we feel that it would also be inappropriate to place their names on the new memorial and act against the families wishes, so they too will be just going in the book.

Like I said, we are very lucky to have been able to see the original documentation about names put forward for inclusion on the original memorial and also for those wishing not to have their loved ones remembered this way.

I must also point out that we will be adding names on our new war memorial, the original war memorial is in our C.E.church; there were several families from the village that were catholic, etc. In the documentation it states they wished their loved ones to be commemorated, but did not want their names placing on the C.E. church memorial; these lads are commemorated nowhere in our village. Our new memorial is a civic memorial and will be placed on the village green and have no reference to religion whatsoever.

John.

[lionboxer]

There's really no definitive answer to this, it's all down to individual belief or in our case the beliefs and wishes of our community. This was shown by the magnificent effort in raising nearly four thousand pounds for the project. This from a village of some four hundred and fifty souls. I suppose we could have built a new memorial just for the new names as John84 has in his community, but our people felt these men belonged alongside their peers. The memorial was inscribed that these extra names were added at a ceremony at a later date than the originals.

Not having the benefit of the original lists or criteria we decided that we would speak up for those who couldn't speak for themselves. Incidentally, we're not too sure how much family input there was originally as there are mistakes in the names with some being totally wrong.

Lionboxer

[JohnBelcher]

I have been researching the war memorials in Chippenham, Wiltshire over the last few years. Last year the main town memorial was refurbished and the British Legion asked for any missing names to be given to them so that they could be included. I gave them a list of approx 75 names. After several sharp intakes of breaths at the number, they were expecting 1 or 2, the criteria was changed and the names had to be nominate by a family member. As I was not family to any of them none of "my" names appear on the memorial. 1 name was added - he was already on a memorial in the town. His only link with the town was that he had worked in a bank prior to enlisting and was a member of the congregation of the church where his name is already recorded.

During the research, something that I noticed and not sure if this was the reason why the names were not put the memorial but a significant number of widows had remarried by the time the memorial was erected.

As has already been pointed out - there seems to have been no set criteria for selecting who should and who shouldn't be commemorated. The local paper carried a report about the town council meeting of February 1921, the decision on the names to be inscribed was discussed but “It was decided to refer the placing of the names to a committee of the mayor, the ex-Mayor and Mr Neate.†I have not been able to find any record of their reasoning, so far, on who would be recorded.

The criterion does seem to have been fairly lax to be honest. The memorial is inscribed “Erected in honour of the men of this borough who gave their lives in the Great War 1914 – 1919â€. Yet records a man who died in 1920! It also records 1 man whose family emigrated to Canada when he was very young, he joined the Canadian army but is on the memorial. Likewise the memorial records a man who was executed.

Another memorial I have researched is in a the small village of Sopworth, Wilts. This memorial commemorates 2 men. But there were at least another 3 who died during the war. It appears that the 2 men were actually killed in action where as the other 3 either died of wounds or illness. 2 of the unrecorded men are actually buried in the village cemetery.

[welshdoc]

This is a great thread, I was toying with trying to see if one of the missing on our memorial that I "discovered" would have a good argument for inclusion. I now realise that there may have been good reasons why hes not on it so will leave well alone.

[Anthony Bagshaw]

Gareth,

It is a great thread and there are some really valid points.

I must say though that i agree with what Andrew says, using the example that he did. Who are we, as researchers and complete strangers to these men who we research, to say whether or not a name that isn't on the memorial should be included.

The family may want names adding now, that's fair enough it's their choice to do this, but not a complete stranger. We do not know the real reasons why these names weren't added. What if the family didn't approve of them being in the army and were bitter about it, what gives us the right to go agains how they felt and add a name they didn't wish to add originally.

All the men i have found have been included, but i won't be campaigning to have them put on there, what gives me the right, times have changed and so have attitudes.

[jmoha]

Just a thought as I read this thread. A common theme seems to be men who are buried nearby and yet are not on the memorial. I wonder if this was a deliberate exclusion. With the decision to bury men where they fell on the battlefield, the memorial could be seen a the focal point for rememberance for a family. Those who are buried nearby have a grave to be visited and tended.

As for my local memorial, still early days, having enough problems with those on it without the headache of those ommitted!

[Anthony Bagshaw]

Jmoha,

Overall there are 13 local lads buried within half a mile of the memorial here, 3 are not on the memorial, one died in 1916, and two in 1921. Seems strange why 3 are not on it, when 10 are.

Bizarre

[John_Hartley]

My beef is that present day families should not be the arbiter of whether a war memorial is altered. Whatever the reasons for the original decisions, even when they seem blatantly wrong to us, I do not feel that we have the right to alter them.

Well, yeah, but no, but yeah. Innit.

I understand this but justify my own decision (and, yes, I did have to justify to myself) I took the view that, without evidence to the contrary, there may been no "original decision". Great Uncle Ben's widow may not made any decision not to have him commemorated. It may well simply have turned out that's what happened.

So, yes, I do believe I have the right to correct an error of omission.

john

[lionboxer]

At the risk of getting into hot water with Chris Baker I feel the following is a valid point, which I will not pursue further on pain of death, or worse......if the government has the "right" to pardon all the SAD cases then I feel that we have the right to commemorate those people from our communities that paid the ultimate price so that those following us can see and pay respect. (No, we don't have a SAD) Most of our extras were from families that had moved away where in some instances they are commemorated in their new location too. This is especially so with WW2 names when these were not added until 1965. Incidentally one of the original men from WW2 never set foot in the village as he had died before his parents came here after being bombed out of Norwich. But, at least his name is remembered somewhere.

Lionboxer

[auchonvillerssomme]

It depends what the purpose of your research is. Personally I research for my own education and pass on what i have learnt to others if they are interested. I do often debate with myself the motives of those who attempt to redress some perceived imbalance in history by the erection of a memorial to a cetain Battalion or adding a name where, 80 years ago, for one reason or another it was omitted.

Mick

[kevin dunion]

I have come across several 'extras' whilst researching the memorials for Anstruther and Cellardyke, some of which are inexplicable. The manner by which names appeared on the memorials was simply that adverts were placed in the local paper asking for names to be included, as no Roll of Honour had been maintained in the course of the war. Clearly for some families making sure their menfolk were recognised was very important - 6 men appear on both memorials. Some names only squeezed in at the last minute - the Cellardyke memorial starts with the Black Watch and the men are listed alphabetically - and then goes onto the Gordon Highlanders etc- however bringing up the rear is a William Anderson, Black Watch whose name would have been first on the memorial if his family had submitted it before the sculpting had got underway. There are several names on church memorials which are not included and there may be family reasons for that but it is difficult to understand why parents would list one son and not another but that certainly was the case in Cellardyke where a Canadian Sergeant George Wilson is listed but his brother Seaman David Wilson who died whilst serving on HM Trawler Waltham is not.