Woking Remembers Exhibition

Surrey History Centre has just opened an exhibition on the First World War memorials that can be found in the Woking area. They also have a wonderful online resource to accompany it.
The exhibition runs from Tuesday 3 November – Saturday 28 November in the foyer of the Surrey History Centre so you’ll need to get down there [...]

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The Elliot Brothers

By office volunteer, Annette Gaykema.
Another remote memorial is that of the Elliot brothers, William and Alistair, which is located by the shores of Loch Glencoul in Sutherland, Northern Scotland. Since the nearest public road is approximately 8 miles away, this memorial is only accessible by foot or by boat.

The story behind it is an interesting one. The [...]

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Update: Memorials to the Missing of Fromelles

By office volunteer, Annette Gaykema.
Further to Frances Casey’s blog post of July 2009, records held at the Australian War Memorial and the National Archives of Australia can shed further light on Sidney Frank William Harold Green.
Like all First World War Australian service records, his file has been digitised by the National Archives. In this file there is no notification [...]

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Memorials to the Missing of Fromelles

article by UKNIWM Project Officer, Frances Casey
The anniversary of the Battle of the Somme on 1st July has made me think recently of that equally disastrous attack, intended as a diversion and strategic support to the main Somme offensive, which took place at Fromelles on 19th July 1916. In the news, following the discovery of a burial [...]

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The mysterious Taffy

Not all war memorials feature the names of those who served or died but, if they do, the very least information displayed will be the surname of the person being remembered.  Invariably this is accompanied by their first name or initial. 
Some memorials include further information such as rank, date and place of death, place of birth, age or manner of [...]

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Myths about who can appear on memorials

This post is prompted by a newspaper article, sent in by member of the public, which appeared earlier this month in the Yorkshire Post.  The article deals with plans to add the names of those who died in the two world wars to Featherstone’s war memorial, as these were not included when it was built after the First World War.  (Click [...]

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Campaign to inscribe WW2 names on Portsmouth memorial

A new campaign has been launched in Portsmouth to raise £100,000 to inscribe the names of the 3,500 local people killed during the Second World War onto the town’s war memorial.
Read more from BBC NEWS
This case is typical of the situation in many places and it’s not at all uncommon to find there are no names [...]

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Adding new names to old memorials

The following is a good example of an enquiry we frequently receive at the UKNIWM.
“I have been asked by some WW2 veterans if names can still be added to war memorials. It is the impression of some people that no names can be added after 1947. I can understand this if it relates to a National War Memorial [...]

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New searchable post-WW2 Roll of Honour database

We receive regular enquiries from people searching for service personnel who died after the end of the Second World War.  While fatalities from the First and Second World War are well documented by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission’s Debt of Honour database, until now there was no easy way to search for those who had [...]

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Those with no memorial

On Sunday it will be 89 years exactly since my great grandmother’s step-brother was killed on the Western Front.  Lance Corporal Alexander Foltyniewicz died in action on 26 August 1918 at the age of 24.  He had served since early 1915 and died less than 3 months before the armistice.  The Commonwealth War Graves Commission lists 1,594 other commonwealth [...]

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