A MEMORIAL honouring First World War dead from Paddock is to have a new home.
The ceramic plaque is to be displayed in the Army Drill Hall on St Paul’s Street next to Huddersfield University and close to the town centre.
But it has cost around £500 for the restoration work and one of the people behind the project has urged people with relatives on the memorial to chip in.
John Shaw’s grandfather, John William Wallis, is on the plaque.
He served with the 2nd Battalion of the Duke of Wellington’s Regiment and was killed in action on the Somme on July 1, 1916. It was the battle’s notorious opening day and the blackest in British military history for the number of troops killed and injured.
He was 32 when he died and his name – along with more than 70,000 other British and Allied soldiers who have no grave – is on the Thiepval Memorial in France.
The Paddock memorial had always been at All Saints Church on Church Street, and remained there when the church was bought as a home by David Aveyard in 1985.
He converted it into a six-bedroomed family home now called Kirke House.
He has agreed to allow the memorial to be moved to the Drill Hall on permanent loan, but will retain ownership.
Mr Shaw, who lives in Lepton, has organised the move along with Dorothy Firth, of Mirfield, and Geoff Ashton from Salendine Nook. Both are also John Wallis’ grandchildren.
Mr Shaw said: “It has cost £500 to renovate the memorial by providing it with a new oak frame and transparent 2mm-thick polycarbonate sheeting to protect it, as some of the ceramic pieces are loose.
“It would be great if some of the relatives of other soldiers on the plaque could help with the cost.’’
Anyone who can help or wants to contact Mr Shaw should phone 01484 304078.
