Why names are not on a war memorial

[John_Hartley]

I'd like to work up the definitive list of reasons why a man might not be on the local war memorial. Here's my first stab at it - please add some more:

- whilst the man was born there, the family had moved before the War.

- the family had moved away after his death but before the Memorial was built

- family had also died by the time the Memorial was commissioned

- his connection with the area was as a single man - there was no-one to remember him

- his connection with the area did not fit the criteria for getting a name on the Memorial

- the family never saw the "invitation" to submit a name

- they didnt want to accept he was dead

- he wasn't dead (or, like one Stockport name, he never existed)

- the Memorial was too closely connected with the Anglican church for his family

- his widow had remarried and wanted to "move on"

- he was a sh it and no-one wanted to remember him

[spoons]

His family would not (or could not) pay any required contribution to have his name added

everyone assumed that someone else had added his name

family were illiterate

he is listed on a memorial in a nearby town or village (not the local one) presumably because he had work, social or worship connections there

simple human error, his name was submitted but never made it to the memorial

his name was misspelt so you assume it is missing, it is there, but wrong

there were 2 men with similar names and someone 'deleted' the duplicate from the list

2 more which are off-topic for the forum and I will pm you

I have seen, heard of or suspect all of the above but the reasons could be almost endless.

\Spoons

[Tom Morgan]

- the family simply didn't want him to be included

- the man died after the memorial had been completed and no-one got round to adding his name

[spoons]

I also came across one where a QAIMNS who died of illness in UK was not listed. Was it because she died of illness, or just because she was female?

[John_Hartley]

I've received Spoons' PM which reminds me that there is one subject of the Great War prohibited from discussion under Forum rules and this might be a reason why a very small group of men are not included on memorials (although I believe I know of at least one that is).

(Post updated, October 2008. As Forum rules have changed, it is now in order to mention that this reason was that they were executed by the military during the war.)

[Neil Clark]

John,

An interesting thread... In the past I have given this matter some thought and would offer the following. We need to clarify the difference between an official tribute and a civic tribute. I have found that many people don't know the difference! Most men whose names appear on a civic tribute should have an official commemoration (excluding non comms). In the case of men whose names appear on official tributes, it's a bit hit and miss as to whether or not their names will appear on a civic tribute where they had links.

In Medway Kent if you ask people where the town's civic memorial is they will invariably point you in the direction of the Chatham Naval Memorial! When I explain it doesn't contain exclusively local fallen men they normally give me a funny look. Of course the Chatham Naval Memorial is an official tribute to those fallen men whose ships were based at Chatham. Chatham has no civic tribute as far as I can tell which is quite astonishing given it's size and history.

The reasons why names were left off civic tributes include:

Many local men who fell were never commemorated locally on parish civic war memorials. There are a number of possible reasons why this was some of which are quite controversial.

• Single men living locally who died did not have any surviving family members in the area to ensure that their names appeared on the memorial lists after the war.

• A local man was simply forgotten because he had moved away from an area years previously (before the outbreak of war) leaving no one to ensure his name appeared on the memorial.

• Men who were atheists or who did not attend church regularly enough (in the trustees view) were sometimes excluded from appearing on a local tribute. Although many churchgoers deny this kind of discrimination ever took place, we know that this practice was widespread throughout the UK. We can show you many examples.

• Sometimes a man’s name was left off the local Church of England tribute because he was a non-conformist (Baptist or Methodist). If the non-conformist church did not also provide a local tribute, this often resulted in a man’s name not being commemorated anywhere in the parish at all.

• The man’s surviving family were simply too poor and could not contribute towards the cost of the war memorial. The authorities and trustees sometimes required a subscription before the name would be placed on a memorial.

• It was known or thought (often incorrectly) that the man was commemorated elsewhere on another civic war memorial and it was felt that there was no need to replicate the commemoration locally.

• A mans family were sometimes unwilling to have their dead relatives name recorded because of moral/ethical objections. Conscientious objectors often oddly preferred to forget that members of their family fought and died in a war.

• Rarely surviving members of a man’s family simply couldn’t be bothered to co-operate with the trustees resulting in a man’s name being left off the war memorial.

• The personal wish of the man concerned that in the event of his death, his name be excluded from any memorial listing or similar tribute. Although this was a rare occurrence there are documented examples of men preferring this.

• The person(s) who collated the memorial lists misheard/read the information provided by surviving family members and recorded inaccurate detail resulting in a mans name being left off altogether or a corrupted spelling being included.

• The person(s) who formulated the memorial list did a tardy job. Even in the 1920’s searches of local newspapers between 1914-1919 would have identified forgotten men. Similarly a walk around local cemeteries would have unearthed more forgotten men (there are Ashfordian’s buried locally whose names were forgotten).

• The stone mason or sign writer misread the trustees lists and placed incorrect detail on the memorial resulting in a name being left off or the placing of a corrupted name spelling.

And then there were men who were shot for cowardice etc....

[tom compton]

hello neil.I find this post very interesting i have a granddad who is not on his local war memorial ,did the famly have to submit his name and pay some money into a fund ,and how can i have his name put on it ,do the present day famly have to pay.tom

[ypres1418]

Maybe as one member of the family is buried locally they decided to put the other brother on as he was buried in France? I have come across this in Warrington.

Also have one man who had one of his brothers placed on the memorial but not the other two! I wonder why this happened, unless the other two were married by then and he thought the widows would do it!

Mandy

[Coldstreamer]

committed suicide - family didnt have him included (for what ever reason)

listed on a memorial where parents lived (seen this several times and only because I have service papers could check NOK address)

[Heid the Ba]

There was a case locally where the family in Dunfermline thought the son was on an Edinburgh memorial (where he had lived) the friends in Edinburgh assumed he was commemorated in Dunfermline. He has since been added to the Dunfermline one.

[pier]

I had no idea that the families had to pay towards the putting their names on a memorial, thats shocking! my family would have been rather poor, but i can't understand why one son

has been added and not the other ? Both their parent's were alive after the war.

[Coldstreamer]

Im sure that not all memorials had a "fee"

re one son and not the other, perhaps they had disowned him, lots of reasons are possible which is the point of the thread I suppose

[Heid the Ba]

I have a friend who grew up being told his grandfather "didn't come back from the war" and assumed he was dead. It was only many years later he found out that the grandfather wasn't killed, he simply didn't come back.

Maybe there are others who aren't on memorials because they aren't dead.

Ah, on checking I see that is one of John's original categories.

[Coldstreamer]

I bet lots of people took the chance to disappear

[John_Hartley]

,did the famly have to submit his name and pay some money into a fund ,and how can i have his name put on it ,do the present day famly have to pay.tom

Somehow his name would have to have been brought to the notice of the local "organising committee". Usually an invitation to submit names was issuued to the community - perhaps in the press, perhaps through the church. In some cases (such as the main Stockport memorial), there was also a trawl through the press lookig for obituaries ( which is how I think "the man who never was" came to be commemorated.

I've no doubt that there will have been instances where it was, perhaps, obligatory, to make a contribution towards costs before a name was inscribed but I'm nto aware of any in my area where this was the case.

In terms of getting a name included now, you would need to contact whoever has care of the memorial. This is often a local authority and they are likely to have differing views. By way of example, I asked the concil to add my great uncle's name to the memorial near where he lived. The council refused but were more than happy to add his name to the main town memorial.

John

[jon_armstrong]

It can be strange and hard to see the logic from 90 years distance.

Take one of "my" men - Arthur Blake Scott. Born in Manchester and with a father something wealthy in textiles, he seems to have spent a childhood moving around Manchester and its suburbs, gradually sliding south into Cheshire. By the times of the war, his parents were living in Wilmslow, and from comments in letters and to the paper he was clearly very familiar with and well known in Wilmslow, so had possibly lived there himself at some point. He was living in Cheadle Hulme, although he was attending the Unitarian chapels at Styal and Dean Row, and had some as yet unknown connection with Handforth, possibly through work. At some time prior to the war is was in the Manchester Territorials in some capacity (likely to 6th Bn, given Cheadle Hulme and that he was a lacrosse player), but left due to ill health. When war broke out, he went round a number of recruiting offices, failing the medical each time, until eventually he got into the 7th Cheshires, enlisting as a private. He distinguished himself on their first days in action at Suvla in August 1915, and within a few days had been commissioned in the field. His account of the landing was published in the Manchester Guardian and Alderley and Wilmslow Advertiser, and from then he was an almost permanent fixture in the local paper, writing to them to thank people for what they had sent the troops, to report news, to give relatives accounts what happened to their dead or wounded. He was killed in action in Palestine in 1917, and the Wilmslow, Handforth and Cheadle Hulme sections of the paper each individually reported on it.

A popular fellow it would seem, and someone you would imagine would have left an impression when it came to errecting memorials, but it seems not. He does not appear where he lived on any Cheadle Hulme memorial I know of, nor the Styal one where he worshipped, and he was clearly an afterthought on the Wilmslow one, been appended to the very bottom and out of alphabetical order. He is on the one at Dean Row chapel, on the painted one inside the church in Handforth, and there is a private family plaque in the chapel at Styal. So although he isn't forgotten, the communities which seemed very keen to claim him in life appear to have cooled after he was killed.

At the other end of the scale, all the local memorials appear to contain men with only the most tenuous connections, many of whom hadn't been near the place in years. I suspect we'll never understand the thinking of the men and committees who put them together.

[spoons]

That last post led me to thinking (I may have imagined this) but could a man be left off of a church memorial because his family had already erected an individual memorial for him?

\Spoons

[John_Hartley]

This leads to another reason - he isnt on the "village" memorial, because he's on the church one. And family wanted to commemorate him when they went to church (or similar).

[Neil Clark]

That last post led me to thinking (I may have imagined this) but could a man be left off of a church memorial because his family had already erected an individual memorial for him?

\Spoons

I have never seen that situation taking place.

I would say that most civic tributes did NOT require subscription from the families of the fallen but I have come across remote instances where this did apply. In one case I remember a man's name was actually left off a memorial because his mother hadn't the funds to contribute. Quite shocking but a reality! I feel sure that most trustee committees would have gone ahead with or without a family subscription. Often the local "lord of the manor" or rich landowner would donate a plot of land in the parish and pay the whole cost of the memorial himself especially if his son fell too.

My advice to anyone thinking of applying to have war memorials updated with newly found casualties names, is to go for it! Start by finding out who owns the thing or who is responsible for maintaining the thing. This is more often than not the local authority who will have adopted the memorial under town planning laws (I can find the law if anyone wants it). I have found that some local authorities think they own a memorial when in reality they have only adopted it. The difference is substantial. Most UK memorials were established by the local people who elected a committee of trustees, these committees are no longer in operation and without the local authority adopting the monument it would decay very quickly. Memorials that were merely adopted are easier to update with new names because no one entity actually owns the thing or the ground on which it stands. In the laws eyes the local people actually own the memorial and it is very hard for local authorities and parish councils to do anything that is unpopular with local residents.

In my experience most local authorities are happy to entertain the idea of updating a memorial providing its fabric is not damaged and it doesn't look as though the name was "tacked on" as an after-thought. I have seen some pretty tacky additions in my travels. If you come up against a brick wall, give the story to the local media and watch the politicians shudder!

[Stebie9173]

The town (city in my case) chose to spend their money on a memorial hospital/building/park, and did not inscribe names on a memorial at all, though there was probably a memorial book or the like within said building.

Steve.

[Dave1914]

I know someone has mentioned families moving away from the town as a reason, but theres also abroad.

D.

[Peter Gower]

A most interesting topic. You could also add that the 'authorities' did not consider it a war death - maybe illness before he ever left the area, or suicide, or venereal disease, or desertion: all of those can exclude you in some communities. Or the person was born there and moved away before the war.

As for adding to the memorial. Here in Kingston, Ontario, we have a veteran who has enough money to do such things: unhappy with the very incorrect World War Two listing, he himself paid for a corrected bronze tablet which is now with the original.

The numbers omitted can be quite high. In Kingston, there are 258 names on the City memorial, and 125 on the County one (with three names on both. I have found at least 150 names omitted, and am still finding more.

Peter

[Greyhound]

You could also add that the 'authorities' did not consider it a war death - maybe illness before he ever left the area, or suicide, or venereal disease, or desertion: all of those can exclude you in some communities.

And sometimes these very same reasons (and others) can account for the inclusion of a "mystery" man, who can't be accounted for through official sources.

[kinnethmont]

Memorials that were merely adopted are easier to update with new names because no one entity actually owns the thing or the ground on which it stands. In the laws eyes the local people actually own the memorial and it is very hard for local authorities and parish councils to do anything that is unpopular with local residents.

I don't know about England but understand this is not the case in Scotland. Under Scots law, someone owns it, whether it can be proved or not. The owner of the memorial would be the person who holds a valid Title Deed for the land it stands on. When you buy a house in Scotland the reality is that you purchase the land. This includes the house (or memorial ) standing upon it.

[stiletto_33853]

Maybe too many names, some towns do not have the names on the memorial but have a memorial scroll in a civic building.

Andy