A work party at the memorial

 

The Town Council and St. Mary’s Church have agreed that there should be a plaque at the Warwick War Memorial alerting visitors to this website, where they can find the stories behind the WW1 names commemorated, and see background features about Warwick during The Great War.

The ideal place for the sign is the churchyard railings beside the memorial. During the 1914-18 war, the casualty lists were posted on boards attached to the fence.

Every morning, local people would come to see the names, hoping of course that their sons’ or husbands’ names were not on the list.

So this was the spot chosen for the permanent war memorial unveiled in 1921 before a crowd of at least five thousand people, according to reports in the Warwickshire Advertiser.

But the railings had become completely overgrown by ivy. So volunteers from Unlocking Warwick’s research team have been clearing that part of the metal fence.

It’s hoped that the plaque will be put in place in time for the Remembrance Sunday service and march past on November 10th.

Thanks to many hours of research at the County Record Office, and some fascinating contributions from local families, this Warwick War Memorial website is now a comprehensive resource, with information about all the 366 Warwick men and women who gave their lives in the First World War.

You can read about the thousands of troops from the Royal Warwickshire Regiment who mustered in Warwick as soon as war was declared, many billeted in the town, and the occupation of Pageant House and The Court House by 300 members of the Army Pay Corps who organised the logistics and complex administration of the mobilisation.

The website is already well used, with more than two thousand page views each month.

But the plaque to be fixed to the railings should alert many more people to this fund of information about the names on the brass plates on the memorial, and the impact on Warwick of WW1.