Hi, from Oakworth

[Andy Wade]

Hello,
My name is Andy Wade and I live in Oakworth. We've been researching war memorial names for a number of years now and have a couple of local men who also appear on your war memorials. Private Thomas Collier who lived in Haworth and Barnoldswick, and Private Fred Binns who lived in Oakworth and Barnoldswick. (there might be others as well)
I have some information on both men, including pictures of them.

[Travis]

Welcome Andy from another War Memorial enthusiast, mine being my home town near Manchester.

Andy Fitton.

[Tizer]

Hello Andy Wade, and welcome to OGFB. I now live in Somerset but I was born and raised in Blackburn. I can't justify calling myself a war memorial enthusiast but having relatives who served in WW1 and WW2 I'm always concerned that we remember those who served and those who died while serving. So I commend you for your memorial work.

I have a question which I'll put to you and to Andy Fitton (and to anyone else who wishes to comment). When I see war memorials in British towns and villages I've often wondered if anyone has made a photographic archive of them - for each town or village, a photo of the memorial in its setting and a close-up showing the list of names. The images would be filed alphabetically under the town's name. Do you know if this has been done? It would be a way of preserving for posterity images of all the war memorials in case they were damaged or vandalised. I've searched the Web but cannot find such a thing. When I saw the War Graves Photographic Project web site I thought that would be it, but not so. It's a guide to memorial information based on entering a person's name and doesn't do what I've described.

[plaques]

Tizer et all, Part of my long running project is to record all the terrace plaques, civic plaques, memorials and anything with carved inscriptions in stonework. To keep it to a a manageable size I've limited the cover to Burnley and the towns / villages in Pendle. War memorials present a particular problem in that many are gradually being degraded by weathering and general ageing. Also, besides the township memorials there are also those located in churchyards which may also carry more local names. Since war memorials were not the initial focus of my project I can only point at some of the and make people aware that they exist. The Burnley memorial, shown below, has some 15 panels on it, which I may add, are kept in very good condition.

[PanBiker]

There is an initiative here Tizer.

War Memorials Online

The Imperial War Museum also holds some transcripts of memorials. I have yet to avail them of the changes we brought about to our town memorial. I have all the documentation but have not yet updated the IWM, must make a point of this.

I think the first link is a reasonably new initiative, I don't think it was there when we doing our research our and the eventual changes in 2013. They are working in conjunction with the IWM so notifications to them are shared between the organisations.

Welcome to the site Andy, sorry for going off on a bit of a tangent. If you look in the local history section on the site you will see various threads detailing our efforts and subsequent success in adding missing names to our memorial, culminating in a re-dedication for the new names and freedom of the town for The Yorkshire Regiment. Our roots of course in the West Riding of Yorkshire.

[Tizer]

Thanks Ian. The web site on that link seems to be doing much of what I'd hoped for. As Plaques said, "many are gradually being degraded by weathering and general ageing" so it's essential that visual records are kept.

[Stanley]

The same applies to the environment. That's why I like posting Forgotten Corners.....

[Andy Wade]

Hi Everyone,

Many thanks for the welcome and the replies.

The Imperial War Museum does run the UK National Inventory of War Memorials, it had been neglected for many years because there were only a couple of staff members (and quite a few volunteers as well) but I understand they've done a lot more with it since the Centenary and some funding probably came their way:
UK National Inventory of War Memorials

There's also the War Memorials Trust that gives out grant funding for conservation work on memorials so if you have any local ones that need repair work doing, they're the people to contact:
War Memorials Trust

We have photographed almost all of our local war memorials and transcribed the names from all of the ones we've been able to get access to.
But the story isn't perfect as out of 55 known war memorials for Keighley, 9 are missing, presumed lost and 11 are in storage and have not been seen from one year to the next. Some have been hidden away for over 30 years!
We think this is unacceptable particularly in the WW1 centenary, and are working to get them all out on public display again.

If anyone would like the photographs of Thomas Collier and Fred Binns then you can email me from our website: www.menofworth.org.uk.
We also have a photograph and details of Herbert Chaplin who survived WW1 in the Royal Engineers. Herbert was born in Haworth. He followed in his Father’s footsteps and trained as a carpenter and joiner and he worked for Briggs and Duxbury of Barnoldswick, helping to build Edmondson’s Fernbank Cotton Mill.