Background

On 31st October 1918 the War Memorial Cross beneath the Tower of Cirencester Parish Church was dedicated to "... the men of Cirencester who have given their lives for their King and Country in the Great War, 1914 -18".  It was intended to inscribe their names on panels  on the West wall of the South porch once the war was ended.   In December 1918 a preliminary list was published of "... all who have fallen in the war who are known to have been natives of Cirencester or whose home was in Cirencester at the time that they joined up...", together with "... a few relatives or close personal friends of the donors,"  Mr Thomas and Hon. Mrs Kingscote of Watermoor House, who had funded the Memorial.    It is believed that the  qualifying area would have been that of the “Urban District Council”, which differs from the present Town Council area. In July 1919 a public appeal was made for a further memorial in the form of an extension to Cirencester Hospital, then in Sheep Street.  The Roll of Honour on this building - now the Cirencester Memorial Centre - was prepared in 1921 to list "... all Cirencester men and women who fell in the war or died from the effects of wounds received or illness contracted on active service, the qualifications adopted being 1] birth in the Parish of Cirencester 2] enrolment whilst resident in Cirencester."   So broadly speaking some men are named on the church panels who did not qualify for the later memorial, which includes some whose death occurred or became known after the inscription of the church panels. Only one woman is named, Julia Herbert, who was a Red Cross worker. The lists (left) give name, date of death if known, regiment or service, if known, and which memorial panel the names are on. The date of death will help you search the Wilts and Glos Standard (to be found on microfilm in Cirencester’s Bingham Library) for announcements, obituaries or letters. We have now extracted most World War 1 references from the WGStandard. If you find a newspaper article we have not included in the relevant biography, do let us know. You may find that relatives that you thought met the criteria above are not listed. We would like to know this too. There is correspondence about Henry Day, for example, who died of wounds in November 1915, who had links to many places near here, but not, it seems in Cirencester itself. He cannot be found we think on any memorial in the county. His grave is in Sussex.

Other War Memorials to

Cirencester People

There are two memorials inside Cirencester Parish Church, one for old members of the Church Lads Brigade  [IWM 20703] who died in WW1, with a surprising 42 names,  and one for Lt R E Westmacott RN [IWM 20704] who died in WW2. In St Georges Chapel at the Royal Agricultural University is a memorial to Lt SWP Vereker who died in the Anglo-Zulu War in 1879. More well known is the memorial to Major EJ Bannatyne [IWM 45136] who died in WW1. The memorial is an oak staircase in the Cirencester Memorial Hospital that CDC keeps wanting to convert into a carpark. There is a memorial in the Bingham Hall to ex-pupils of Cirencester Grammar School. We are aware that there are war memorials to ex pupils of Oakley Hall School in its chapel, which is listed [Now a private dwelling]. Some or all of these we now understand have been transferred to the care of the Letts family (Last owners of the school). A stone tablet with the names of all past pupils who perished has recently been erected on a wall in public view at the entrance to the old Chapel. As a boarding school, few of these pupils had other Cirencester connections. Are there other relevant memorials that you know of?  

Some stories on the way

The previous version of this site carried a blog of a journey towards the 2014 exhibition in the Corinium Museum, which is not reproduced. We give a few stories below. 8 Nov 2012 The War Memorials Trust has sent us their bulletin. They have launched www.warmemorialsonline.org.uk which cost English Heritage £250K, so it is cleverer than this site, which has only cost about £36 a year so far. Their new site uses the Imperial War Museum listing of memorials, and wants you to add in the details. The Trust is set up to preserve war memorials, and has many examples of those in disrepair.   Our church memorial has just had a facelift, of course, but we need to carefully watch the other, which CDC is minded to sell, we hear. From W&G Standard 8 Aug 1914  [four days after War Declared] Army horses from Ciren district  On Wednesday morning a party of officers and men from the 18th Hussars arrived at Cirencester with instructions to procure 72 horses at once. We understand the horses were obtained during the day, many of the hunting men of the district and other owners readily placing their horses at the disposal of the government. Between 70 and 80 horses of various stamps and all exceedingly serviceable were marshalled in the yard of the King’s Head Hotel on Wednesday evening, and after being branded and labelled were taken by the soldiers in charge to Salisbury Plain. On Thursday morning owners having horses for sale were requested to parade them at the Cirencester cattle market at 11 o’clock. Found by Linda Viner - published in Newsletter 59 1 April 2013 Some controversy surrounds the Bannatyne Staircase (see Other Cirencester Memorials) which is not “listed”, nor is the building in which it is located. CDC would clearly like to demolish the Memorial Hospital, but have been trying to find relatives since 2002. It is a handsome staircase which would have been climbed by most patients and visitors to the hospital which closed in the early 90s. Member Simon Fielding of Rendcomb later provided detail of Bannatyne’s life and death. 23 November 2015 News of a Gloucestershire man who does not seem to be on any memorial. Kevin Gordon of Seaford Museum in Sussex has been researching the 250 or so war graves in his local churchyard - there was a military hospital nearby. Henry Robert DAY, 11th Glos Rgt died aged 19 on 10th November 1915. Linda has found that the family lived in many places in the county and the death announcement in WGS. Kevin ensured that a poppy was placed on his grave on the centenary of his death The history of the Memorial Hospital building can be found in Newsletter 48