{"id":838,"date":"2014-11-09T11:00:42","date_gmt":"2014-11-09T11:00:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/uniofglos.blog\/?p=838"},"modified":"2024-11-05T12:00:20","modified_gmt":"2024-11-05T12:00:20","slug":"remembrance-of-casualties-of-the-great-war","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.glos.ac.uk\/history\/2014\/11\/09\/remembrance-of-casualties-of-the-great-war\/","title":{"rendered":"Remembrance of Casualties of the Great War"},"content":{"rendered":"

Rob Taylor, a recent Masters Graduate here at Gloucestershire, maintains his own blog, but has given us permission to reproduce this post<\/a> about war memorials in the county for Rembererance Sunday.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"?????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????\"<\/a><\/p>\n

With the centenary of the Great War upon us, interest has grown exponentially\u00a0in gaining a better understanding of the events of that war, and the local participants who were claimed in\u00a0it. One of the best sources of information\u00a0for\u00a0discovering the identities of local people who were involved is\u00a0the\u00a0plethora of war memorials dotted\u00a0across the landscape. From\u00a0church,\u00a0school and business\u00a0Rolls of Honour and churchyard crosses, to more elaborate publicly placed monumental forms, these\u00a0memorials record details of catastrophic community loss.\u00a0They are also a demonstration of community pride. What I have\u00a0discovered through an ongoing and now international study, is that many war memorials offer very detailed information about the\u00a0names listed, \u2018a conspicuous time capsule\u2019 of information. From name, rank and serial number,\u00a0other memorials note decorations won, the place and\/or\u00a0date of death, some noting cause of death. Other\u00a0memorials list women\u2019s names, (a debated practice at first),\u00a0some\u00a0record those who returned.\u00a0In very few\u00a0 communities known as \u2018Thankful Villages\u2019 the commemoration\u00a0on the Rolls of Service list\u00a0all in those \u00a0communities who participated and returned without a single loss. It is these last two group of memorials, noting\u00a0those who returned<\/em>,\u00a0that make the direct connection for\u00a0any community\u00a0to the past.<\/p>\n

One of the problems with\u00a0memorials over\u00a0time however, becomes\u00a0upkeep and maintenance. At Remembrance Sunday and Remembrance Day (November 11th) citizens gather at these monuments to\u00a0commemorate and give thanks to those who laid down their lives for the future generations.\u00a0\u00a0They want to be able to inspect and in many cases connect themselves to the past, but in some cases the memorials have become unreadable. Additionally some\u00a0iconographic symbols, thought important and recognizable at the time of construction, have become corroded and are now unidentifiable due to weathering of stone.\u00a0Worse still, is the problems of vandalism or theft.<\/p>\n

A publication by Joseph Devereux and Graham Sacker \u2018Leaving All that Was Dear, Cheltenham\u00a0and\u00a0 The Great War\u2019, <\/em>is an in depth study of the casualties\u00a0recorded on the\u00a0Cheltenham Roll of Honour\u00a0on\u00a0the main Promenade Great War Memorial. What their book does\u00a0is cross reference the Roll of Honour\u00a0names to other smaller\u00a0local memorials where those names are also commemorated.\u00a0I used their research in combination with\u00a0research\u00a0discovered when undertaking\u00a0my University of Gloucestershire Masters of Research dissertation, by locating smaller local memorials\u00a0in need of restoration.<\/p>\n

The work of Devereux and Sacker\u00a0offered me insight into the\u00a0lives of those recorded on the St. Peter\u2019s Church war memorial on the Tewkesbury Road.\u00a0I discovered one name that was not noted in Devereax and Sacker\u2019s book, that being the very faded inscription of: \u2018PAINTER G.\u2019<\/em> (see photo below). Through exhaustive research and contact directly with Graham Sacker and others, \u00a0I was able to uncover that the casualty\u2019s name was actually George Painter and he is in fact buried\u00a0at St Mary\u2019s Church in Fairford\u00a0Gloucestershire buried with a Commonwealth War Graves Commission headstone (see below). He was from Fairford but\u00a0had lived on Waterloo Road Cheltenham, across from St Peters church.\u00a0He is\u00a0listed on the\u00a0 St Peter\u2019s memorial as the Fairford memorial\u00a0had already been completed before George Painter\u2019s death in February 1920.<\/p>\n

\"DSC02078\"<\/a><\/p>\n

A rather special wreath laying ceremony on Remembrance Day (Tuesday November 11th). It will take place\u00a0on the\u00a0Tewkesbury Road at St Peter\u2019s Church at 10:45 AM. Interest is growing in the fact that this will be the first service to be held at the church memorial in many years. Although conservation work has not yet begun it is being more seriously considered. A large public presence will emphasise the need for conservation work\u00a0 at this memorial and allow people to see the\u00a0actual degree of\u00a0conservation needed.<\/p>\n

It is hoped that with the availability of\u00a0government funds advertised to clean, conserve and repair (in\u00a0worst cases), memorials,\u00a0that borough councils can develop better working relationships\u00a0with organizations such as the War Memorial Trust,\u00a0amongst others\u00a0to develop a more cohesive working relationship to\u00a0better monitor the condition of\u00a0all local memorials and that by doing this the memorials\u00a0should be able to be better maintained.<\/p>\n

I have continued to work to assist the Gloucestershire representative of the War Memorial Trust\u00a0 in identifying Great War Memorials\u00a0that are in need of cleaning and conservation. From my\u00a0personal investigation of\u00a0over 500 of the 607 memorials recorded by the United Kingdom National Inventory of War Memorials (UKNIWM), in the County of Gloucestershire\u00a0I feel that my developed expertise\u00a0is an asset. In fact I have located one memorial within the county which is not listed on the UKNIWM listing\u00a0which suggests that there may be more.\u00a0\u00a0This 608th memorial may be the basis for a publication!<\/p>\n

\"Cheltenham<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Rob Taylor, a recent Masters Graduate here at Gloucestershire, maintains his own blog, but has given us permission to reproduce this post about war memorials in the county for Rembererance […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_EventAllDay":false,"_EventTimezone":"","_EventStartDate":"","_EventEndDate":"","_EventStartDateUTC":"","_EventEndDateUTC":"","_EventShowMap":false,"_EventShowMapLink":false,"_EventURL":"","_EventCost":"","_EventCostDescription":"","_EventCurrencySymbol":"","_EventCurrencyCode":"","_EventCurrencyPosition":"","_EventDateTimeSeparator":"","_EventTimeRangeSeparator":"","_EventOrganizerID":[],"_EventVenueID":[],"_OrganizerEmail":"","_OrganizerPhone":"","_OrganizerWebsite":"","_VenueAddress":"","_VenueCity":"","_VenueCountry":"","_VenueProvince":"","_VenueState":"","_VenueZip":"","_VenuePhone":"","_VenueURL":"","_VenueStateProvince":"","_VenueLat":"","_VenueLng":"","_VenueShowMap":false,"_VenueShowMapLink":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[310,37,768,690],"class_list":["post-838","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog","tag-first-world-war","tag-gloucestershire","tag-modern","tag-students"],"blocksy_meta":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.glos.ac.uk\/history\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/838","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.glos.ac.uk\/history\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.glos.ac.uk\/history\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.glos.ac.uk\/history\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.glos.ac.uk\/history\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=838"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sites.glos.ac.uk\/history\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/838\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3470,"href":"https:\/\/sites.glos.ac.uk\/history\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/838\/revisions\/3470"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.glos.ac.uk\/history\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=838"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.glos.ac.uk\/history\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=838"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.glos.ac.uk\/history\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=838"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}