{"id":254,"date":"2024-11-26T22:33:29","date_gmt":"2024-11-26T22:33:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/smaaa.org.uk\/ww1\/people-copy\/"},"modified":"2025-10-17T20:21:04","modified_gmt":"2025-10-17T19:21:04","slug":"war-memorials","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/smaaa.org.uk\/ww1\/the-local-area\/war-memorials\/","title":{"rendered":"War memorials"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"pdfprnt-buttons pdfprnt-buttons-page pdfprnt-top-right\"><a href=\"https:\/\/smaaa.org.uk\/ww1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/254?print=pdf\" class=\"pdfprnt-button pdfprnt-button-pdf\" target=\"_blank\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/smaaa.org.uk\/ww1\/wp-content\/plugins\/pdf-print\/images\/pdf.png\" alt=\"image_pdf\" title=\"View PDF\" \/><span class=\"pdfprnt-button-title pdfprnt-button-pdf-title\">PDF<\/span><\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/smaaa.org.uk\/ww1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/254?print=print\" class=\"pdfprnt-button pdfprnt-button-print\" target=\"_blank\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/smaaa.org.uk\/ww1\/wp-content\/plugins\/pdf-print\/images\/print.png\" alt=\"image_print\" title=\"Print Content\" \/><span class=\"pdfprnt-button-title pdfprnt-button-print-title\">PRINT<\/span><\/a><\/div>\t\t<div data-elementor-type=\"wp-page\" data-elementor-id=\"254\" class=\"elementor elementor-254\" data-elementor-post-type=\"page\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-element elementor-element-ae3a96f e-ecs-flex e-flex e-con-boxed e-con e-parent\" data-id=\"ae3a96f\" data-element_type=\"container\" data-e-type=\"container\" data-settings=\"{&quot;ecs_container_type&quot;:&quot;flex&quot;}\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"e-con-inner\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-element elementor-element-5261728 elementor-widget elementor-widget-text-editor\" data-id=\"5261728\" data-element_type=\"widget\" data-e-type=\"widget\" data-widget_type=\"text-editor.default\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-widget-container\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<p>Within the parish we have three principal war memorials, together a number of plaques related to individuals from St. Michael\u2019s congregation.<\/p><p>The\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/smaaa.org.uk\/ww1\/people\/the-parish-fallen\/the-parish-memorial\/\">Parish Memorial<\/a>\u00a0is in essence a \u201cCalvary\u201d or \u201cRood\u201d erected on and above the church\u2019s Choir\u00a0Screen, accompanied by a nearby bronze plaque bearing the names of the parish dead.<\/p><p>A separate memorial, specifically relating to those individuals associated with residents of the Bedford Park Estate comprises the carved and decorated stone\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/smaaa.org.uk\/ww1\/people\/the-parish-fallen\/the-bedford-park-memorial-seat\/\">Memorial Seat<\/a>, now situated on the grass area to the West of the Parish Hall.<\/p><p>A third plaque inside the church commemorates those fallen who had been members of the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/smaaa.org.uk\/ww1\/the-local-area\/memorial-to-4th-territorial-cadet-battalion\/\">4th Cadet Battalion of the Middlesex Regiment<\/a>, two Companies of which were based at St Michael\u2019s \u2013 developed from pre-war Boys Brigade groups.<\/p><p>Some of the names appear on more than one of these memorials.<\/p><h2>Why do we have three Memorials to the Great War?<\/h2><p>The public naming and commemoration of War Dead, particularly combatants, has an interesting history of development.\u00a0 In earlier wars, including the Crimean and South African Wars, monuments and memorials would generally celebrate victories, or commemorate particular leaders or national heroes.\u00a0 Only the wealthy were able to remember their family warriors with a physical memorial, much less commonly by repatriation of his body for burial or simply in the context of written accounts. \u00a0One of the first public monuments that expressed national gratitude for the lives and sacrifice of their fighters can be seen at the foot of London\u2019s Waterloo Place, in the Guards Crimean War Memorial:\u00a0\u2018To the memory of 2152 Officers, Non-Com. Officers and Privates of the BRIGADE OF GUARDS who fell during the war with Russia in 1854\u201356.\u2019\u00a0\u00a0 Those killed in battle would have been buried where they fell.\u00a0 Repatriation of the dead was impracticable\u00a0and individual marked graves infrequent.\u00a0 The same applied during the South African (Boer) Wars though families were more likely to commemorate those they lost, usually in local churches.\u00a0 At St. Michael\u2019s, one such memorial is the Clock erected on the West wall, in memory of the first vicar\u2019s son, Lieut. Harold Wilson, killed at Spion Kop.<\/p><p>The Great War, with its nearly 900,000 British and Commonwealth killed, affected all communities to a hitherto unimaginable extent, especially as the need for temporary voluntary and then conscripted service became apparent.\u00a0 Every parish mourned its sons and daughters and all families needed to express their grief in countless tangible ways, to be reassured that their loss and sacrifice had permanent meaning and value.\u00a0 At the national level, this led early on to the recognition of the need for individual commemoration of all combatants, regardless of rank, first articulated by Fabian Ware, appointed to command the voluntary Red Cross Mobile Ambulance Units in the first months of the War.\u00a0 By February 1915 he had become the Major at the head of the army\u2019s Graves Registration Commission, ultimately the Imperial (now Commonwealth) War Graves Commission (CWGC) established in May 1917. The principles underlying the uniform design of our national cemeteries, identical headstones regardless of rank, creed and race, the invariable Cross of Sacrifice and the Stone of Remembrance, was a hard-fought compromise won by Sir Frederic Kenyon in the following months. Those principles were hotly debated between Church and State, and between Ware and the arch-rivals of the Arts and Craft movement:\u00a0 the architects Edwin Lutyens, Reginald Blomfield and Herbert Baker.<\/p><p>The Commission determined, early in 1915, to prohibit repatriation of the dead and stop the tendency for more wealthy families to erect elaborate monuments to their lost sons in the Western battlefield.<\/p><p>It seems that the National debate was to be reflected to a significant extent in the Parish of Bedford Park, as it was in all other towns and villages\u00a0in Britain.\u00a0\u00a0 At a relatively early date, the parish magazine records that the vicar, Father Jacob Cartmel-Robinson expressed the need to commemorate the Parish Fallen.\u00a0 Initially, in July 1915 he called for an up-dating of the\u00a0\u201c<em>list of honourable men who are engaged, or have been \u2013 for, alas! some of them are dead \u2013 in the service of their country.\u00a0 \u2026\u00a0 At the end of the War it is our intention to set up a permanent memorial in the Church.<\/em>\u201d\u00a0 By January 1917, the parish losses became regularly reported \u2013\u00a0\u201c<em>\u2026reminding us of the heavy toll which the War is taking of our young men\u2026<\/em>\u201d\u00a0.\u00a0 The Vicar went on:\u00a0\u201c<em>It is our wish to set up a Calvary in the Church garden \u2026 as a memorial to the men who have given their lives as a sacrifice in the Great War \u2026 let us see to it that it does not stand as a substitute for the indwelling Presence.\u00a0 We must see to it that it is a reflection of the Christ within us. \u2026Who will take part in erecting a Calvary which will remind everyone who passes of His sacrifice and the sacrifice of our own dear lads? \u2026<\/em>\u201d.\u00a0 By April \u00a0the Parish Council had endorsed the idea and the first subscriptions had been raised.\u00a0 It was not long before the various opinions in National debate were reflected among Bedford Park society.\u00a0 Public meetings in the Club, and the Church Hall resulted in the decision to erect the secular Bedford Park Memorial Seat in the Church garden, and the separate and overtly Christian Parish Memorial, a Calvary or Rood, above the Chancel Screen within the church building, very much in keeping with the church\u2019s Anglo-Catholic tradition.\u00a0 The Cadet memorial appeared after the War\u2019s end.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p> Within the parish we have three principal war memorials, together a number of plaques related to individuals from St. Michael\u2019s congregation. The\u00a0Parish Memorial\u00a0is in essence a \u201cCalvary\u201d or \u201cRood\u201d erected on and above the church\u2019s Choir\u00a0Screen, accompanied by a nearby bronze plaque bearing the names of the parish dead. A separate memorial, specifically relating [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":132,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-254","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>War memorials - St Michael &amp; All Angels Church World War 1 Project<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"noindex, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_GB\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"War memorials - St Michael &amp; All Angels Church World War 1 Project\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Within the parish we have three principal war memorials, together a number of plaques related to individuals from St. Michael\u2019s congregation. 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