When is name put on local memorial?

[KIRKY]

Hi

can some good person tell me why a name was put on a local village memorial?

Was it because they were born, lived or what there?

Tony

[Terry Denham]

Tony

Names were put on local war memorials by ad hoc committees of local worthies soon after the war - vicars, businessmen, landed gentry, councillors and so on.

Each committee drew up its own criteria for accepting names. Usually they had several 'qualifications' - lived in the locality, born there, worked there, family lived there etc etc. There were really no hard and fast rules. Some committees were more relaxed about the qualifications than others.

There are several threads on this subject if you search on something like 'local memorial'.

[john w.]

Hi Kirky

Terry helped me with the same question when I was looking for the men on my local war memorial.

I recently went to my local Record Office to see the Parish records for the time but unfortunately there was little to see. So I am currently stuck myself, even though I have now completed the basic research of all my people.

In some cases mistakes, misspellings can be a problem, and I think someone said that it is possible to find a name on a number of memorials, according to where they lived etc.

John

[Jonathan Saunders]

Just building on what Terry has already written, something I found in my own investigations suggested names for my local memorial were compiled from knocking on doors and asking if you had a relative deceased in the war that you would like named on the memorial (there werent many streets here then and I suspect they knew where to go).

The upshot is that from investigating the names there are at least two whose parents were living here by 1918/9 and are named but who had no direct connection that I can find themselves ie. never lived here and probably never even visited this village. If my memory is correct there are also local men buried in the churchyard with CWGC headstones that are not named on the memorial either.

Interestingly I have found nearly as many fatalities not named with a strong connection to the village (born, school, lived here etc) that are not named on the memorial. In some cases the families were still living here and so this must have been a conscious decision by them not to put their husband/son's name forward. Interestingly this included the local "squire's" grandson although I expect his family made a large contribution to the memorial fund. His exclusion may have been a religous issue as the family were Methodists or some fringe denomination. His CWGC headstone is not marked with the cross.

I expect the circumstances changed from village to village, town to town etc

[Michael]

Ditto what Jon says.

There seems to be no rhyme or reason. We have 18 names on ours, one of which I can't find any reference to and another who is also on an adjacent village's memorial. There are others who should be on there but aren't.

I reckon that anybody whose looked at their memorial will find exactly the same.

The parish council minutes state that a war memorial committee was set up. Their meetings were separate from the parish council and unfortunatley no-one knows what happened to the minutes (if there were any).

If you can find your parish council minutes for the year or so before the memorial was set up, it MAY give a clue about the criteria.

Good luck

Michael

[BeppoSapone]

Interestingly I have found nearly as many fatalities not named with a strong connection to the village (born, school, lived here etc) that are not named on the memorial. In some cases the families were still living here and so this must have been a conscious decision by them not to put their husband/son's name forward.

My own great uncle is not mentioned on his local War Memorial, although the family lived in the town both before and after the war.

I made some enquiries at the local library and was told that some sort of form was sent out to the families of all known casualties, and that they had to return the form to get the name on the War Memorial. Looks as if my relatives didnt complete the "bumf".

One interesting thing is that, IIRC, the Library told me that they still held the returned forms.

[Will O'Brien]

I reckon that anybody whose looked at their memorial will find exactly the same.

I would agree with you on this one Mick............Of the memorials I have researched (I think I'm on about number 30) I have always had a least one man who appears to have absolutely no connection to the village/town at all..............entries on multiple memorials seems quite common too, especially when the casualty was married.........I assume Parents put names forward & wives did also

[John_Hartley]

One of my WW2 guys is definately remembered on the village memorial by his aunt and he seems to have had no other local connection that I can find. I suspect several WW1 ones are the same.

I have one, where I believe the widow moved away very soon after after the soldier was killed, yet he was recorded on the memorial (presumably by friends as they got his name slightly wrong inscribing him as TC - Ted Charles - when he is actually Charles Edward)

[Max Poilu]

While investigating a local veteran - J.P. Ciclitira - whose name did not appear on our local memorial (Loughton, Essex), further research uncovered eleven other casualties who had also been missed.

It seems this was not un-common, lists might be compiled from electoral registers, church lists, leafleting of houses or simply by word of mouth. In Mr Ciclitira's case, despite living only 500 yds from the memorial there may have simply been no-one to speak up for him. Happily the names were added in 2002 together with those killed in the Second World War. More on this in January 2003's "Stand To!" is anyone is interested.