Huddersfield University staff and students gathered to rededicate a war memorial to mark the centenary year of the outbreak of World War One.
The special ceremony was held yesterday at the Queensgate campus and saw a war memorial painting that was first unveiled in the immediate aftermath of the conflict officially re-dedicated.
In the early 1900s more than 1,000 Huddersfield Technical College staff and students went to war.
Hundreds never returned, and among the dead were four members of the college’s full-time staff.
The artwork occupies a first floor landing wall in the Ramsden Building, now the historic heart of the university.
The service was led by the Rev Anita Raggett, the University’s Anglican Chaplain.
Wreaths were laid by the Mayor of Kirklees, Clr Ken Smith, the Lord-Lt of West Yorkshire, Dr Ingrid Roscoe, and University Pro-Vice-Chancellor Professor Tim Thornton, who began the ceremony by outlining the history of the wall painting, which was originally dedicated in 1924.
The painting is a three-part allegory by John Richardson Gauld depicting War, Death and Victory and it incorporates an oaken cenotaph that represents peace.
Prof Thornton said: “The mural depicted, War, Death and Victory, but for families of those who had fallen, that victory must have seemed a hollow one.”
Music students performed the Last Post and the Reveille, conducted by Phillip McCann, head of brass and woodwind.
Prayers were led by the Rev Anita Raggett and by Deacon Gill Atkinson-Heck, who is the university’s Methodist chaplain.
And there was an echo of the 1924 ceremony when 13 members of the Lindley Junior School Choir, conducted by Alison North, performed the hymn ‘O God Our Help In Ages Past’, which was sung at the original dedication.
The university has just published a 528-page book called Huddersfield’s Roll of Honour 1914-1922 wit details of almost 3,500 people from Huddersfield who lost their lives in the conflict.
