A project is under way to try and obtain war grave pictures of the grave or memorial of all the Border Regiment Lonsdale Batallion war dead.

Coxyde Militay Cemetery, Belguim

The creator of the Lonsdale Roll of Honour website intends to obtain as many pictures as he can of the men of the Lonsdales.

The idea is to get a picture of the grave or commemoration on a memorial, which will be available free to those who request it.

A searchable database by surname or cemetery, remembers the war dead of the 11th Battalion of the Border Regiment ( The Lonsdales ), with photographs of the cemetery and in some cases the soldier in question.

The link on the soldiers name will take you to his war grave picture, the cemetery links to a view of this and any other photo’s are labelled accordingly.

Your help required Like many ambitious and dedicated projects of this nature, the creator of the Lonsdale Roll of Honour website would like to make a request to all readers of the site to help in the Lonsdale War Grave Project.

The Lonsdales are buried in France, Belgium, Germany and the UK and help is required to collect images of cemeteries and memorials. A list of burials by cemetery, with directions and cemetery plans showing the approximate location of graves is available.

If you are going to the Western Front and can take a couple of snaps, or live near one of the UK Cemeteries, please help this project. All that is required, is a couple of pictures and a cemetery view.

You may even a relative listed of whom you have a picture, these would also be very welcome. Anybody willing to assist with this incredibly valuable project, contact Spike Kev Johnstone

About the Lonsdale Battalion

The Lonsdale Battalion was part of the Border regiment, formed on 17th September 1914 at Penrith, Carlisle, Kendal and Workington by the Earl of Lonsdale and an Executive Committee.
They were attached to the 97th Brigade of the 32nd Division.

Theatre of War Honours; France & Flanders 1915, 1916, 1917, 1918.
Battle Honours; 1916: Somme, Albert, Ancre.
1917: Ancre, Messines.
1918: Somme, Arras.

The battalion was transferred to the 66th Division of the Border Regiment on the 13th May 1918 and was absorbed into the 1/5th Battalion.  They were eventually disbanded on the 31st July 1918.

More information

Lonsdale Battalion Roll of Honour website

Lonsdale Battalion Cemetery List

Growing Remembrance - The Story of the National Memorial Arboretum

The story of the inspiration for, establishment and evolution of the National Memorial Arboretum is a fascinating one.

Sited at Alrewas, Staffordshire, the Arboretum has become the Nation’s all year round focus for remembering and paying tribute to all who have served their country in both peace and war not only in the armed forces and merchant navy but in the emergency services as well.

Planting began in 1997 and was supported by hundreds of organisations both serving and retired.

Among the early memorials was a life-size wooded polar bear, for 49th Division, a grove of Irish trees for the Royal Irish Regiment, an Avenue of Chestnuts for the Police and a Chapel of Peace and Forgiveness to mark the coming of the Millennium.

Britain’s war-widows had a rose-garden planted for them while the Far East Prisoners of War managed to fund a small museum to stand alongside a length of railway track brought back from the notorious Burma Railway.

In October 2007 HM the Queen confirmed the importance of the site when she opened the Armed Forces Memorial to commemorate all service personnel lost on active service since the end of the Second World War; this is especially poignant given the on-going conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The importance of the National Memorial Arboretum is well demonstrated by the growing number of stands and the steady increase in visitor numbers.

More information >>
Growing Remembrance – The Story of the National Memorial Arboretum

Remembered with a simple brass plaque in Silloth is a young man called Cecil Taylor Martin. He was killed, aged just 17 years old, in the First World War on board HMS Monmouth. The son of a local doctor, he is forever remembered in Christ Church, Silloth. Cecil Taylor Martin held the position of Assistant Clerk when he was killed in action on the 1st November 1914, off the coast of Chilli.

Cecil Taylor Martin - Assistant Clerk HMS Monmouth

Cecil Taylor Martin –  remembered

Screwed to the brick wall behind the font in Christ Church, Silloth is the memorial to Cecil Taylor Martin. Measuring around 80cm x 30cm the brass plaque is inscribed;

In loving memory of Cecil Taylor Martin Assistant Clerk HMS Monmouth aged 17 years elder and dearly beloved son of George and Margaret Emily Martin killed in the action off the coast of Chili 1st November 1914 Blessed are the poor in heart for they shall see God

Cecil was the eldest son of Dr George Martin of Silloth.

HMS Monmouth

Cecil Taylor Martin died when HMS Monmouth, an armoured cruiser, was involved in the Battle of Coronel.   This battle claimed over 1600 souls,  of which over 600 are attributed to HMS Monmouth.

The British ships,  Good Hope, Monmouth, Glasgow and the armed merchant cruiser Otranto, were outgunned and lacked battle experience when they came up against the mighty battle group of the German Graf Spee, Scharnhorst, Gneisenau, Leipzig and the Dresden.

The battle commenced around 7pm on the 1st November 1914, with a 8inch German opening salvo from around 12,000yrds.

The British had little or no response from that distance and, to make matters worse, were silhouetted by the setting sun. Making them an easy target for accurate, repeated German gunfire

Commentators have described the battle as the first British defeat for over a century that resulted with the loss of two armoured cruisers and all crew.

The only known memorials to what took place off Coronel, Chile can be found in Stanley Cathedral on the Falkland Islands or in Coronel itself.

An online website is dedicated to the memory of all those involved in the Battle of Coronel.

Further information

Maritime Memorials  - Cecil Taylor Martin

Christopher Long – More information on the battle and the original signals to the Admiralty

Battle of Coronel – Wikipedia

Battle of Coronel  - a Pictorial Look

The church yard of St. Michael’s in Dalston, Cumbria could have come straight out of a novel by J.R.R Tolkien.

Tiny gravestones look as though they are sprouting from the earth

In the mists of an autumn morning, we came across 30 or so small gravestones about 18 inches in height and 12 inches wide,  this was something we had never seen in a Cumbrian church yard before and it felt like we had suddenly been transported to the Shires of Middle Earth.

Then a sinking feeling in the pit of the stomach at the thought that all the graves were of infants and that some epidemic befell the Victorians of Dalston.  However, closer inspection revealed that these are just normal graves, representing a wide selection of the population and all dating around the late 19th century.

Victorian flamboyance

Victorian gravestones are renowned for being quite large, well carved and often ostentatious and there are gravestones in Dalston churchyard which fit with this generalisation.  Perhaps hard times in the late 1800′s led to people selecting smaller grave memorials but these are not simple stones, they are just as detailed and well carved as their larger counterparts.

There are about 30 to 40 grave stones in the older part of the church yard, surrounded by mature yew trees, with a handful of others scattered in between the larger memorials.

A broken grindstone takes a young life.

Inscriptions on these miniature stones are well worn and some are falling over but one or two give an insight into the lives of the people they commemorate;

One reads:
“In memory of Robert Baldwin
Who was accidentally killed by the
breaking of a grind-stone at the forge
February 7th 1885 Aged 19 years
Thy will be done”.

St. Michael’s Church

St. Michael’s Church stands in the main square of Dalston village.  Built in 1750 from red sandstone and restored in 1850.

The chancel is said to date from the 13th century and two Bishops of Carlisle are buried here.

Did this man create the miniature gravetones?

One of the other graves we found in Dalston Church yard and marked by a regular size memorial, belongs to John Harkness, a local tombstone cutter who died in 1891.

Perhaps John Harkness was responsible for the miniature gravestones!

We would be interested to hear from anybody who can shed light on the reason for the small grave memorials and indeed, their creator.

Further information

Dalston Church website
Carlisle Records Office

Sweetheart Abbey on the outskirts of Dumfries is the burial place of James Eric Drummond, 16th Earl of Perth.

James Eric Drummond

Situated behind the right hand stone wall of Sweetheart Abbey in new Abbey, is the inconspicuous grave marker of James Eric Drummond, 16th Earl of Perth. 17/08/1876 to 15/12/1951
Also his beloved wife Angela C Maxwell Countess of Perth 10/12/1877 – 24/04/1965.

Two other memorials alongside are dedicated to Nancy Seymour Finke, countess of Perth who was born in New York City in 1911.  Wife of John David Drummond 17th Earl of Perth and the tragic 1964 grave of the 3 day old Annabella Margaret Drummond.

More information

Drummond Earls of Perth

Rampant Scotland - Drummond Castle, Perthshire.

The monument inscriptions from the graveyard of St. Cuthbert’s, Bewcastle in Cumbria, is a valuable resource to all those researching their border roots.

Home of the famous Bewcastle Cross

A full description of each grave, together with a plan of the churchyard showing numbered graves, index of persons, index of places and miscellaneous index, is available on CD in Word, Rich Text and Adobe Acrobat format, for both PC and Macintosh, either to pick up in the church, or by post.

Basic details of St. Cuthbert’s, Bewcastle grave inscriptions are also available online.

Transcriptions have also been made of the official records of births, deaths and marriages from 1813 to 1916, plus marriage bonds from 1770 to 1824.

More information

Bewcastle.com - Genealogy pages.

Monument inscriptions from St. Cuthbert’s, Bewcastle. – Basic online listing

The aim of The War Graves Photographic Project is to photograph every war grave, individual memorial, MoD grave, and family memorial of serving military personnel from WWI to the present day and make these available within a searchable database.

Now working as a joint venture with the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, this will enable families, scholars and researchers to obtain, via the CWGC or TWGPP websites, a copy of the photograph of a grave or memorial which for many is impossible to visit due to the location.

This service has only been made possible through the efforts of a dedicated group of volunteers, from all walks of life, who feel the need to Remember those who made the ultimate sacrifice and who realise the importance for families to see where their loved ones are laid to rest or commemorated. This emulates the CWGC ethos to ‘Remember in Perpetuity’

This project aims to photograph in excess of 1.75 million graves or memorials from Commonwealth Nations and many from other military forces around the world.

Use the search facility to check if a photograph is currently held and available but please remember that the CWGC records hold 1.75 million casualties so there is still a little more work to do before the archive can be considered complete.