A Huddersfield school has restored a memorial plaque dedicated to former pupils who lost their lives during World War I ... and now wants to learn more about them.
The bronze plaque at Crow Lane Primary and Foundation Stage School lists the names of 27 young men who attended the school at the start of the last century and has been given a new prominent position in the school hall. The maintenance team worked together to clean and polish the memorial tablet and bring it back to something like its original sheen.
Pupils were made aware of the plaque and its significance at the Remembrance Day assembly and the timing could not be more poignant as we have just commemorated November 11.
Headteacher Martin Vayro said: “The memorial presents the children, staff and parents of our school with a unique and personal link back to the First World War. During this period of the 100th anniversary of the war we feel it it’s important to acknowledge and remember these men who would have sat in our hall during assemblies, learned in our classrooms then lost their lives in the fields of France.”
The school would love to hear from anyone who may have a link with the former pupils. Their names are John H Morgan, Richard Armistead, Fred W Beaumont, Lawrence Booth, Jim Broadbent, Norman R Chippendale, Harold Cliffe, Tom Dyson, Albert E Everitt, Hubert Everitt, Alexander W Falconer, Edward Hill, Harry Hirst, Harold S Holroyd, John Jones, John Kaye, Frank Lockwood, Percy Lusty, John Milnes, Joseph Nuttall, Edmund Priestley, Fred T Smith, Asa Townend, Donald W Townend, Tom R Wade, John Walker and Albert Whitwam.
Some details about the soldiers are in the book Huddersfield’s Roll Of Honour 1914-1922 researched and written by the late Margaret Stansfield from Elland.
The book has information about all 3,439 people from Huddersfield killed in World War One.
For instance, one of the soldiers who died, 21-year-old Pte Percy Lusty, had enlisted in 1915 and had served in Egypt, the Dardanelles and France and survived an attack by mustard gas poisoning early in 1918. Sadly he was killed in action in April that year.
Pte Norman Chippendale suffered a very unlucky fate. He had served four years with the Territorials before the war and so was granted his discharge and went home. But he decided to voluntarily re-enlist and went back to France in May 1916 as a specialist bomb thrower.
He was killed on October 25, 1916 while on guard duty behind the lines when a piece of shrapnel struck him on the head, killing him instantly.
