Brierley Hill war memorial: unlocking its secrets

I’ve been undertaking a fascinating journey in the last few days, looking at the Brierley Hill war memorial.

In particular I was keen to discover the stories behind the names which appear, alphabetically by surname then initial, on the monument.

To start with there was little to go on, but the equivalent Rosetta Stone to cracking the memorial’s secrets is the internet and the ancestry.co.uk site in particular.  A search of their records of those who died in the Great War enabled the identification of some 134 of the 205 names on the monument.

There is room for error in this work – it’s early days.  But there is some cause for confidence that the names and details are correct, in each case there had to be some connection with Brierley Hill before the details were added to the list.

What was surprising was the numbers of entries in the database for soldiers who have very clear connections with Brierley Hill, and yet are not listed on the memorial.  Perhaps they are on another memorial?  Or perhaps no-one was around at the end of the war to submit their names for inclusion?

Unfortunately I’ve not made a search of naval records as yet…but here’s the list as it stands.  If you spot any errors or know anything about the soldiers.

If you would like to do your own researches you can find a link to download my Excel spreadsheet, as it stands by clicking the button below.

[button link=”http://sdrv.ms/1exOvZM”]Download Excel of war memorial names (latest)[/button]