Commemorations 2014-2018
From 2014 to 2018, we remembered the fallen from World War 1 in various ways, including a banner of home-made poppies in 2014 (right, click to zoom in), displaying the names of those from St Michael’s and Bedford Park commemorated on our war memorials. Scroll down to read more about our Lottery-funded project to remember them. We apologise for the loss of other photos, which is being addressed.
There is also a display of more than 500 poppies knitted by the congregation, on the Parish Memorial screen and ten soldier silhouettes awarded under the There But Not There programme.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]
St Michael & All Angels World War 1 Project
World War 1 Project website St Michael’s: The Fallen, year by year The Fallen, road by road St Michael’s Clergy and Lay Ministers Chiswick War Memorial & the Parish of Bedford Park
In 2014 St. Michael’s embarked on a project to identify and study the lives of the individuals whose names appear on the various war memorials associated with the church, including our Parish Memorial – The Holy Rood in Memory of those Fallen in the War (left) and the Bedford Park Memorial Seat outside St Michael & All Angels Parish Hall.
From the 128 names inscribed on the war memorials at St Michael and All Angels Church, Bedford Park, David Beresford, a member of the congregation, has researched as many individuals as can be identified from existing public records. With support from the Heritage Lottery Fund, and using original parish documents, contemporaneous news items, national databases and other archives, David has tried to piece together the stories behind their names, learn how their war was fought and how their families and the community were affected. The WW1 website was launched in 2017 and David Beresford was interviewed about it on Chiswickbuzz.net.
By recreating the personal stories and developing education presentations, we want to show children and adults alike some of the human impact of WWI on a local Chiswick parish. Children will be able to gain an understanding of the war’s reality for local people and gain some knowledge about how to research stories of their own starting only with a name on a memorial.
Exhibitions about their stories were shown each year in the church from November 2014 to November 2018:
1914: The first to fall
1915: Remembering 15 more who fell
1916: Remembering the Somme
1917: Ypres. Passchendaele and Palestine
1918: Centenary of the Armistice
You can read the Clarion – Armistice Centenary Edition – 1918 – 2018 here online
St Michael’s & The Great War, as recorded in the Church magazine 1915-1918
St Michael’s World War 1 Exhibition and Website
St Michael’s: The Fallen – Year by Year
St Michael’s: The Fallen – Road by Road
James & Cosmo Clark: WW1 painters in Bedford Park
Cosmo’s War: performed on Remembrance Day 2022
St Michael & All Angels & World War 2: 1939-1945
2020 marked the 75th anniversary of the end of the Second World War. In St Michael & All Angels Church, Pat Davies and Jean Argles – the ‘Codebreaking Sisters’ – spoke about their wartime experiences in one of three Chiswick Book Festival sessions marking the event. Click below to see more.
St Michael’s and World War 2
Note: There is another church in Chiswick called St Michael’s:
St Michael’s Church Sutton Court in Elmwood Rood researched the 33 men named on its own war memorial, through its Lottery-funded Heroes of Chiswick scheme.