NEWSLETTER ISSUE 7 July 2010 Update: There has been a great amount of activity at the War Memorials Project since the last newsletter. Thank you to everyone who has been working to answer some of our Can you help? section. It has been confirmed that the Whitwick Methodist Church memorial is alive and well(!), and we had some further information on George Albert Smith. He is not on Bagworth memorial, thanks to Peter Trowell for checking. I am happy to welcome Catherine Dove to the war memorials project. Catherine has been working for the Archaeological Planning team and we are pleased to say that some of her time will be devoted to the project for the next few months, and hopefully beyond. She has been working with me to enter into the catalogue as many casualty names as possible to enable searches for individuals. The ICT department are also currently working on some website features for us, so in time our catalogue will be searchable online. A growing number of veterans, family members and friends have come forward offering information to the project. I would like to thank all those who sent materials in, and would like to apologise to those we have not yet been able to visit. We have not forgotten you, please do not forget us. Copies sent by post are most useful to us while we lack the time to make visits around the county. In the meantime, if you would be interested in forming a war memorials project oral history group, or digitisation group, willing to meet with people in your area in local libraries, please do get in touch, we need you!
News: Newly released! World War Ancestry: Record Office for Leicestershire, Leicester and Rutland Guide No. 1 by Robin Jenkins. You can now get hold of this guide to the sources available at the Record Office, including on the internet, for research into the involvement of individuals in the two World Wars. The guide has 41 pages and is fully illustrated in colour. It contains references to documents and addresses and websites for further research. It will be an invaluable tool for research connected to the War Memorials Project. It is now available from the Record Office for 4.50, or by mail for 5 including P&P. To order, please contact the Record Office on 0116 2571080, or at recordoffice@leics.gov.uk, or write to Record Office for Leicestershire, Leicester and Rutland, Long Street, Wigston Magna, Leicestershire LE18 2AH. Earl Shilton and Hinckley area community radio station, Hilltop Radio have offered to record military memories relating to their local area, or people from their local area. Here at the war memorials project we would be delighted to put you in touch if you would like to record your military memories, or your research into local war memorials or casualties for their sound archives. Hilltop Radio can be heard live online at www.hilltop-radio.com and they have in their recordings archive at least one piece relating to a local person s experience of war. The Commonwealth War Graves Commission is having an event on 19 th July to mark the opening of the new Fromelles (Pheasant Wood) Military Cemetery. An un-named soldier, the last of the 250 British and Australian soldiers to be buried, will be buried during the service. The soldiers were reburied after being recovered from mass graves. There is likely to be much news coverage of the event. More information and some videos relating to this can be seen on the Commonwealth War Graves Commission website.
Articles: Royal Tigers Association, The Royal Leicestershire Regiment to attend ceromony in France. By Mel Gould On September 25 th of this year the small French village of Berles au Bois about 15km South West of Arras is to commemorate the 95 th anniversary of the arrival of the 8 th Battalion the Leicestershire Regiment in the village during WW1. They will also be naming the village square, Dick Read Square. Pte I. R. (Dick) Read was one of Kitcheners first recruits and served in the 8 th Battalion as a machine gunner. What he saw and experienced inspired him to write a touching memoir, Of those we loved. The book not only deals with his and his comrades ordeal but with the kindness shown by the people of Berles au Bois. Artois Sud 14-18, a French First World War group, read the book and contacted the Royal Tigers Association s chairman, Captain Bob Allen and invited the Association to take part in the ceromony and about 60 members of the Association and members of the Read family will be attending and will be presenting the village a large cast of the Leicestershire Regiment s cap badge. Berles au Bois There are the graves of 39 Leicesters in the Berles au Bois Churchyard extension and and a folder with information about each of these casualties will be presented to Artois Sud and cross placed at each grave. The Royal Leicestershire Regiment s historian Richard Lane said: The soldiers made a very big impression on the people of the village at the time they were almost guarding them during their time in Berles-au-Bois. I ve been studying the First World War for 40 years and I ve never heard of anyone doing anything like this. We should all be very proud. It is a great honour for the regiment. Pte Read died in 1971.
Berles au Bois Churchyard Extension Memorial highlight: Stanton under Bardon street lights: These street lamps Are dedicated to the Ever-lasting memory Of the following men Who fell in the Great War 1914-18 J Adcock JL Adcock R Brown H Finch H Hall EIW Hill GE Mitchell WJ Orton These photographs of the lamp post with dedication plaque were taken in the late 1980s/1990s by Aubrey Finney. They show much corrosion from weathering to the copper alloy plaque and iron fixings.
These photographs taken by the project in May 2010 show that the plaque has been replaced. Street lighting as a war memorial may not always be obvious from a plaque as in this case. Another example of war memorial street lighting can be seen in Burbage, where Brian Simpson made us aware of a WW1 lamp post near to the Methodist chapel. It appears to have lost its head, but the paintwork appears to be kept up. If anyone can tell us more, please do! Can you help? There have been a number of enquiries which I would like to pass on to you. If you can help, please get in touch.
Has anyone seen the name of Sidney Moseley (9705) of 1 st Bn Oxfordshire & Buckinghamshire Light Infantry, on a World War One memorial? It is quite likely that if he is, it may be in Leicester. He is known to have been born in Hinckley, and lived at one time on Belgrave Road, Leicester, possibly at number 60. We have not yet found his name on a local memorial. If you have, please get in touch and this information will be passed on to his relatives. We understand from a veteran living in Leicestershire that a man by the name of Norman Harry Potter (Lance Sergeant 8 th Battalion Royal Fusiliers) was killed by a shell shortly after arriving as reinforcement to the Royal Artillery in Anzio. Norman Potter was from the Clarendon Park area of Leicester. We hope to be able to record the memories of the individual who gave us this information in greater detail. If anyone knows anything about Norman Harry Potter, please let us know. Since some of our press releases reached local newspapers this spring, a number of veterans, family members of veterans, and family members of casualties have come forward with information, documents and artefacts that we would love to be able to incorporate into the project. Specifically, we would love to be able to do some video oral history recordings, and to scan some interesting documents to go into the archive. As we are constrained by time and resources allowances we are exploring our options and would like your opinions. It may be that we can use venues such as local libraries to meet with members of the public willing to share their information. If you would be interested to get involved, or know of any groups or individuals with any relevant experience or equipment, we would love to hear from you. Has anyone spotted the name Harry Ronald Beck 4864024, Corporal in the Leicestershire Regiment on a WW2 memorial in the county? He was killed in September 1944. He is commemorated in Leicester Cathedral, but it is not known if he is on a memorial. His son has been looking in the Belgrave area, where he was from, but has not found anything so far. If anyone knows of any WW2 memorials in this area, or has spotted the name, please get in touch with us. As ever, if you have anything you would like to be included in coming newsletters, or know of anyone who would like to receive these newsletters, please provide an email address (or alternative contact) to the project at warmemorials@leics.gov.uk or call 0116 267 0004. Many thanks once again for your support and all your efforts, Liz Blood Heritage Support and War Memorials Officer Holly Hayes, 216 Birstall Road, Birstall, Leicestershire, LE4 4DG