WW1 War Memorials: the stories of the men and women on WW1 war memorials

Web site: Rother Valley War Memorials

There were many activities in the country to commemorate the centenary of World War I. In late 2013 a team of 12, mainly from Midhurst U3A’s Genealogy Group, decided to support local communities by searching out the stories of the huge number of men and women from our area who were casualties of that war.

Midhurst, Petworth and the surrounding villages all have at least one war memorial. This is where our research started. We have been looking deeper than has been possible before into the backgrounds of the casualties on the memorials and the impacts of their deaths. We have been searching out details of the casualties’ families; their military service; where, when and how they died; and the impact their deaths had on their families and their communities

We started with the parishes of Bepton, Cocking, Lodsworth, Midhurst, Petworth, Rogate and West Lavington, and subsequently added Elsted & Treyford, Heyshott, Iping & Chithurst, Selham, Stedham and Trotton. We plan in the future to extend this to other villages.

We produced a one to two page story of each casualty, as well as an account of the erection of each war memorial itself. See our website for details by clicking on the link above. These stories are available for churches, schools and communities to help them prepare for commemorative services and displays. But they will also become a permanent part of local and national archives. Indeed we are sharing the results of our work with the Imperial War Museums’ War Memorials Archive and West Sussex County Council’s Great War Project, led by Emma White of West Sussex Libraries.

If you are interested in participating in the project or if you have information, articles or photographs which may help our team in its researches, please contact David Earley .

South Downs Alphabet Project

Midhurst U3A members and local schools took part in a “South Downs Alphabet Project” in 2016 facilitated by the South Downs National Park Authority. The aim was to create a new “Sussex alphabet of poetry” to echo that written by Eleanor Farjeon in the 1930s. The resulting book was published in 2017.

u3a High Street Project

In 2020 Midhurst u3a’s Architecture Group participated in a national u3a project gathering photos and information about our local shopping streets. This is a record of changes that are happening around us, some quickly, and some less immediately obvious. What will the emerging trends be as time passes? Currently the number of images uploaded to u3a High Street Project stands at 27,013. The interactive map shows the exact location of many premises and the approximate location of most.