Project to add missing names to war memorial completed

A project which started five years ago to add missing names to a war memorial board at All Saints Church has been completed.

In 2012, the then lay minister, Elizabeth Bryson, started researching names on the memorial and finding out more about the lives of men from the parish who fought in the First World War.

On a trip to France to visit the war graves in 2015, she discovered some missing names from the church’s memorial board as well as some names which were wrongly spelt.

When she left the parish in 2016, churchwarden Derek Smith took on the project.

He worked on improving the board, adding missing names and improving the lighting for the memorial.

Derek discovered that every month during the First World War, names of men going to war were published in the parish magazine.

“As part of the process I have compiled a list of all the names, 910 in total, including some names commemorated on the memorial board but not in the magazines at the time,” he added.

A list of the names in alphabetical order is also now available for those looking into family history.

The project was completed on Wednesday, November 1.