The End in Sight?

This blog is linked to a project I have been undertaking for the last three years. My aim is to produce a book on the war memorials of Shropshire with publication timed to take place in 2014, the centenary of the outbreak of the First World War. The end of 2011 is a significant point in the development of the project as it marks the completion of the bulk of my research work. This has involved visiting hundreds of local memorials of all kinds and compiling a database of more than 800 memorials in the county. As part of this work of course I have gathered a whole array of facts, information and stories linked to the memorials themselves and the men commemorated on them. These, along with a glossary of the memorials will form the backbone of the book. I have been helped in my research by a vast number of people I have met on my travels and who have contacted me via this blog. There help has been incalculable and I am very grateful to them all.

The new year will see me begin to write a first draft of the book which is already taking shape in my mind. There are likely to be chapters covering the following:

A general history of the development of war memorials
Early examples in Shropshire
Memorials in schools and colleges
VC winners commemorated on Shropshire memorials
Architects, designers and manufacturers

There will also be chapters on memorials in various towns and parts of the county such as: Oswestry & the NW, Telford, Shrewsbury, Ludlow & the SW. Finally of course there will be a gazetteer listing each of the memorials I have identified with location and brief details.

Putting the book together is a challenge I am looking forward to. There is, however, one detail which I have yet to resolve. What should be its title? Various ideas have sprung to mind or been suggested, including: ‘An Immortal Heritage’, ‘Sites/Stones of Remembrance’ & ‘Amongst the Crosses’. Please let me know what you think of these or if you have any ideas of your own – peterjohnfrancis@googlemail.com. It would be a big help.

Footballing memorials

Although a life-long football fan (Shrewsbury Town of course), even I was surprised to discover that there are at least three war memorials in Shropshire linked in some way to the game.

Wrockwardine – a small village near Wellington – founded its own football team just after the last War and instead of remembering their menfolk who had died in the War in any of the conventional ways, decided to raise funds to secure the tenancy of a local field for the team to play on. The players bought a disused RAF building from High Ercall for a changing room and the club was up and running. They were obviously something of an innovative club as in the 1950s, at a time when it was virtually unheard of in local football, they erected floodlights for evening games. The lights were only very basic however and used ordinary bulbs of the screw-in kind. It was not a successful experiment and the lights were taken down after only one season. Sadly, the club folded some time ago but I understand that the old RAF building still stands quietly in the corner of the field.

Like Wrockwardine, the Whitchurch football club was formed immediately after the Second World War. It took the unusual name of Whitchurch Alport FC (a name it still has today) as a tribute to local footballer Coley Maddox who had been killed in the War. Coley’s family home was the nearby Alport Farm. The farm still exists though it is used today as craft workshops. The final footballing memorial in Shropshire is also linked to Whitchurch. Cmdr Alfred Peel Ethelston was killed in the Boer War when leading a Naval Brigade from HMS Powerful in the Battle of Graspan. After the end of the War, his family donated a handsome trophy to be competed for annually by local teams. The cup is inscribed with an image of HMS Powerful, the names of the battles in which its crew took part and Cmdr Ethelston’s medals and coat of arms. The very first competition took place in 1908/09 and was won, fittingly, by Whitchurch Working Men’s Hall. Local teams still compete for the trophy in a competition which has raised thousands of pounds for charity during more than a century of football.