History

It is fitting that I should include our “War Memorial” tablets in this month’s history notes. Wars have always robbed men from the villages of this land from time immemorial, but for the ordinary man who so lost his life there was seldom a memorial raised or word written in our local records. Should the squire or lord of the manor lose his life or that of members of his family, then that was quite a different matter; many of our county churches are filled with tablets and memorials which record every detail of the time and place of death, the regiment in which he served, and many other details of the fallen man. Our church warden’s account books record the families of some of the men who were conscripted during the Napoleonic Wars of 1800-1815. Their families received monies from the poor rate, but it does not record the names of any of these serving men who did not return – if any. It was not until the terrible losses of men in battle during World War One that the nation was involved in erecting “War Memorials” in every village, upon which were placed the names of the fallen. This roll of honour did not include the names of the untold heroes who, although they came home, yet they were so stricken in body and mind that they died many years after the war which actually cause their deaths. The following names of those who gave their lives in World War One are taken from the village war memorial, headed by the

inscription:- “ Greater love hath no man than this.” William Adams Alec Alfred Harris John Robert Clarke William Edward Britton Joseph Drew Arthur Pullen Charles Valentine Frank Botteril Ernest Vivian Hare Sidney Albert Basford Jack Webster William Albert Hawes Walter Arthur Billingham Harry George Perkins Bertram John Goode Arthur Edward Carter Frederick George Howes Joseph Thomas Clarke William Bodsworth Robert Mellish Birch Cecil William Ayres Frank Foster

Ralph Paxton This tablet was erected by public subscription. A Memorial Cross also stands in the churchyard likewise bearing the twenty-three names of the fallen in World War One. This cross was given to the village by the late Mr. John Griffith in gratitude for the safe return of his two sons from the war. This memorial also carries the names of the only two men to lose their lives from this parish in World War Two, 1939-1945:- Percy George Malin and Thomas Alfred Whitmore There is one other tablet in the church which in greater detail records the death of Cecil Ayres who was killed at Havringcourt in France in September 1918, whilst serving with the King’s Own Yorkshire Light Infantry.