The Biographies

These biographies have been created using publicly available sources. These include census records, records of births, marriages and deaths along with their equivalent church records and local newspapers. Details of a person’s service comes from records created by the services.

Many service records of soldiers were destroyed in 1940 by a fire that engulfed the building where they were stored. This fire was not the result of enemy action. Those remaining have been digitised and can be viewed on websites such as Findmypast and ancestry. Records of officers are held at the National Archives in Kew. These have not been digitised.

Only rarely are personal letters and diaries still existing and available to view. The Colver family is one exception.

The lack of personal records means that these biographies are basic in terms of discovering the person. In many cases the men were young, barely out of their teenage years and so had not had a chance to establish themselves. This is why these biographies often feature their families as a much as the person so as to give some insight to the influences on the yung man has he grew up.

But the lack of evidence is certainly not evidence of lack. For these young men life was full and exciting. They had a sense of humour, they had friends and were members of sports teams. They sang and told stories. They fell in and out of love. It is important when visualising them to think of young people you have known and so imagine them as lively, friendly people. All this makes their untimely deaths all the more tragic.

The Names

There are about 350 names of men who served in World War One listed on two memorials. The first memorial is on the railings of the War Memorial and the second is inside the church on the South Wall.

The tryptic has names of all the men who served, including those who died, who lived in the parish of Fulwood whereas the names on the memorial are of those who had some connection to the village or parish.

The way in which the 64 names at the memorial were chosen is not known.

There is a history of the War Memorial here

Plaque listing 64 men of FUlwood who died

The Tryptic inside the church

The third group of names that feature in this section of the website are those which feature on the memorials and headstones in Fulwood Churchyard.

The biographies are arranged alphbetically by surname with about 20 per page: