Memorials Project

50 people are listed in 5 war memorials in our church from the two world wars.  For some of these men and women it is now nearly a hundred years since they died.

Do you know who the people were who are recorded on our local war memorials?  Ian Lucraft, the new minister at Christ Church realized that for many of the younger people in church the names on the six plaques in church didn’t mean anything.  So he has proposed a project this year.

Young and old members of the church will be working on it together, to bring to life as many of the names on the memorials as possible.  They will be using the internet to find out some of the details, and working in the library at Stocksbridge, and using books and material that has already been published.  Ian says: “A lot of research has already been done in the past, which we will of course acknowledge, if we use it, but we are hoping to have our own book, produced by our own young people, and to invite the living to a special service, so that they can share in our memorial service this year.”

The congregation at Christ Church want to produce a memorial book which sets out the lives of the men and women who died, and to use the internet to make contact with living relatives of the people who died, wherever the families may be in the world nowadays.

If anyone recognizes a name from the list below, please get in contact with Christine Utting or Nilam Buchanan, two members of the church who are co-ordinating the project.  If you want to share some history, or be involved in the project, or come to the special service in November, that will be welcomed.

They hope be able to write about who each person was, where they lived, what their occupation was, and what their relationship with their church was.  Then report something of where they fought and how they died.  If they can make contact with existing members of the men and women’s families they may even be able to get a photo and learn a lot more.

It will all be brought together into a leather bound book.  The book will be placed in a special memorial cabinet, open at different pages during the year.  Roy Ashmore, a member of the church, is going to make the cabinet in special woods.  The church is thinking about how to bring all the memorials together inside the building, and to locate them with the Peace Candle which is lit every week.

There is going to be a special memorial service in November to which all the living relatives that the church can find will be invited.  They will be able to see the memorials and the new book, and meet the relatives of other families whose members fought in the world wars.

There are six war memorial tablets in Christ Church Stockbridge, with the names of 50 men and women who died in the First and Second World Wars.  The memorials are from: the former Stocksbridge United Reformed Church, or as it was called at the time Stocksbridge Congregational Church; the former Stocksbridge Methodist Church, or as it was known at the time Wesleyan Methodist Church Deepcar; and West End Primitive Methodist Church in Stocksbridge.  Here are the names.

Stocksbridge West End Primitive Methodist Chapel

First World War  1914 – 1919

Nurse Lucy Castledine

Fred Castledine

Thomas H. Finkill

Reginald W Hill

Winfield Crawshaw

Arthur Brailsford

Douglas Shaw

Alfred Sutton

Horace Smith

Fred Fieldsend

Clifford Orchard

Stocksbridge Weslyan Methodist Church

First World War 1914-1918

William Bramwell

Thornton Brooke

Sidney Burgin

Oliver Crapper

Harry Firth

David Gill

Eric Gill

Walter Johnson

Alec A Leather

Amos Perkins

Willie Sanderson

Benton Shaw

Ernest Tingle

George Whittaker

Joseph Whittaker

George Woodcock

William Woodhead

Charles Cyril Spivey

 

Second World War 1939 – 1945

Tom Hanwell

Norman Jackson

Albert Kaye

Victor Hugo Mate

Thomas Henry Mate

Albert Rolfe

Walter Wadsworth

William Everitt Webb

Stocksbridge Congregational Church

First World War 1914-1919

Alfred Beckett

Bertie T Catton

Donald Crossley

Frank Eastwood

Charles England

Jesse H Kenworthy

Frank Lievesley

Thomas Milnes

Eric W Sheldon

Ernest Watson

Second World War 1939 – 1945

Edward Challis

Aubrey Rodgers

Albert Sellars